I've really enjoyed living the rural good life for the past fortnight, but it's time to hit the road again, heading to Laos' capital, Vientiane. On the overnight sleeper bus we start to get excited about all the luxuries that a city has to offer...hot showers, electricity after 10pm and some nightlife. We decide to make the most of it and make it a date weekend; we give ourselves an upgrade and check into a proper hotel, The Dragon Lodge, which seems unimaginably luxurious to us after weeks of hut living. Vientiane, once the seat of French colonial rule, still has [View Full Entry]

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We spend a night at the transit hub of Pakse, catching up on emails and restoring our cash supplies before catching the bus to Tadlo on the Bolaven Plateau. This fertile highland of forests and plantations rises 1500mtr above the Mekong valley and Tadlo is a small village built on the banks of the Seset river surrounded by waterfalls. The ancient bus is almost falling apart, I'm sitting above the groaning gearbox which almost seizes up on every steep stretch, before finally giving up on one monster hill. They get it fixed quickly and soon the au natrelle aircon is working [View Full Entry]

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After a couple of days in Phnom Penh sorting out our Laos visas, we make a dash for the border at Strung Treng. The no-mans' land stretching 20kms on both sides is dusty and begging for the rains to begin. It's really barren, bearing the scars of slash-and-burn agriculture. Each isolated homestead seems to be scraping a living, yet huge satellite dishes sit in every yard. It's not the most inspiring first glimpse of Laos, but that makes what's just around the corner even more special. Within half an hour of the border crossing we're loaded up into a narrow long [View Full Entry]

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We get to Sihanoukville a couple of days before Ritch's 36th birthday, with Billy, Lucy & Chris (for the rest of this blog collectively called BLC) due to arrive the day after. The bus gets into town quite late and the first few guesthouses we try are full. We plan to spend a couple of days at the backpacker haunt Serendipity Beach before spending Ritch's birthday on the more tranquil Otres to the south. The light has almost faded when we agree to be taken to our moto dude's 'friend's place'. As we pull into the Chiva Shack I laugh to [View Full Entry]

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We catch a bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, the town that serves as basecamp for visits to the temples at Angkor. As we leave the suburban sprawl for the grasslands and paddy fields of rural Cambodia, I'm struck by how flat this part of the country is. More than that, it's like a basin. All the timber houses are built high up on stilts, at least 6' off the ground, ready for the monsoon. When the rains come, the Mekong water levels rise dramatically, causing the Tonle Sap, the largest lake in South East Asia, to flood the country [View Full Entry]

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The boat taking us up the Mekong to the Cambodia border crossing at Vinh Xuong/Kaam Samnor, is an old tug that chugs along the 80-odd kms towards Phnom Penh for over 9 sleep-inducing hours. The glimpses of rural life along the riverbank change little as we pass into Cambodia, through a very friendly and hassel-free border control. The boat eventually drops us at a small dock, where we squeeze into a minibus to take us the final few miles to the Cambodian capital, arriving just after sunset. The first differences I notice on the way to Phnom Penh are that, whereas [View Full Entry]

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Phu Quoc is about 100kms offshore from Rach Gia, due east, which on the map shows it to be closer to Cambodia that Vietnam, sitting just 15kms south of the Cambodian coastline. It's over 1000 sq kms of mountainous protected rainforest and some none too shabby coastline. The main stretch, called Long Beach is made up of a few high-end resorts, small guesthouses and a smattering of overpriced beach huts. We opt for Lam Ha guesthouse, which is set back from the beach in really lovely gardens. It's the best of both worlds...just a few steps from the beach, with a [View Full Entry]

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Our journey from Saigon to Can Tho on the Mekong Delta nicely illustrates how we've acclimatised to the confusingly haphazard way things are done here. We take a couple of motorbike taxis to a minibus company that services the routes south into the delta, and when we get there they put us on another couple of bikes to another company without explanation. Whereas 2 weeks ago we'd have been worried as we crossed the city to an unknown destination, we're now relaxed about being the last to know what's going on. And when the ticket guy tries to charge us double, [View Full Entry]

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I'd been steeling myself for Saigon, having been warned that it was hot and hectic, sprawling and difficult to navigate. But we find ourselves dropped off at 6am in a cool misty rain, onto a clean, wide tree-lined boulevard of a clearly prosperous district. The sleeper bus was pretty weird - the coach was divided up into 3 rows of bunk beds which run the length of the vehicle. The bunks are so narrow you can only lie on your back, which makes for a symphony of snoring. Transport has got easier the further south we've gone though. Organising tickets has [View Full Entry]

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As we head further south the temperature starts to climb. The taste of beach life that we had in Hoi An has whetted our appetites for more, and the ever rising heat and humidity has us craving a coastal breeze. We head for Nha Trang on an overnight bus which arrives at 6am. I'm surprised at the scale of the place; a huge resort stretching along 3km of heavily built-up coastline. There are huge 4 and 5 star hotels along the beachfront road which is lined with manicured gardens. It's really not what I was expecting. We're totally dopey from the [View Full Entry]

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