Jen and Nath

On Friday night we arrived back in Bangkok, for our final few days before returning home. So shopping and Thai massages were on the agenda! We spent approximately 10 hours shopping yesterday.... by the end of a stressful and exhausting day our feet wre blistered and our wallets were considerably lighter!! We began the day with a 7am wake up call, and headed to the infamous JJ Weekend Market, arriving there about 8.20..... perhaps a little keen as many of the stalls were still setting up. The market is unbelievably big, there are many thousands of stalls selling everything from vintage clothing, souvenirs, fish, silverware and fruit to puppy dogs. Pretty much impossible to navigate without a map, and prety much impossible to navigate with one! There is so many unique things, that we will struggle ... read more

Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City - A symbol of communism striving against the imperial oppressors and winning....or just a mess of fumes and motorbikes? Neither actually. We have found it to be just lovely. The right mix of Busy Asian City and Cultural Interest. We arrived after a overnight train from Nha Trang (which although we only passed through, looked like Blackpool on speed....ugh). After waiting around for guesthouses to open for an hour or so, we found one, and fell asleep for the next couple of hours. On waking we had a little explore and a lovely bowl of Pho. The city is like bangkok, but not as dirty and cramped. Like Singapore but not as expensive and hideously clean. In short we like it. We even enjoyed the 'cross the road game' in which ... read more

Probably my favourite place we have visited on our entire trip. Hoi An is a quaint little riverside town, packed to the rafters with Tailors and Shoe Makers. On the East Coast of Central Vietnam, Hoi An is just 5km from a beach, but since we were there for just two days we spent all our time in the Ancient Town. Sadly for the two days we spent in Hoi An, Nath had a debilitating migraine, so he didn't see many of the sights or experience it in the evening, when it was at its most enchanting. We stayed in a family guesthouse in the centre of the Ancient Town and overlooking the market. Minh A, the guesthouse, was really beautiful, with a Chinese/Japanese influence, the dark wood building looked like something out of Memoirs of ... read more

After our three day trek, Nath was keen to see the Bolaven Plateau on motorbikes. Initially we had planed to spend the best part of four days exploring the Plateau, but after just two we were disilluioned and ready to head back down onto lower ground. Day one we biked, each on 100cc manuals from Pakse to Tad Lo, a distance of about 85km, to see the waterfalls. The journey was fairly painless as the roads were sealed and the rain held off, until we reached Tad Lo. We stayed the night on the river in a basic little hut, with great views, its fair share of gheckos and a massive flying scarab beetle. The folloing morning we headed up the road to a higher waterfall, which we had to be guided to by a couple ... read more

Post Islands and in need of a culture injection we headed to Champasak to see the Ancient Khmer ruins of Wat Phou. Pre-Angkor in age, this impressive ruined templed complex sits in a sparsely populated province in Southern Laos. We arrived the day before visiting the temple at around 3 pm and found (as it often the case in Laos) 'you have to wait til tomorrow to go temple'. Slow buses and short opening hours for the countries attractions play havoc with those on a tight schedule.... So we relaxed and rode push bikes up and down the one road provincial capital town, which could have been a country village in the south of France. Crumbling colonial houses stood next to farms and children played in the road with little traffic for interference. After the best ... read more