Vietnam - Ha Long Bay - Mind blowing beauty, enough about me the trip was pretty good too! After a couple of hours trawling the tourist offices in Hanoi we finally settled on a 4* two night boat trip in Ha Long Bay. The choices on offer simply overwhelm you, there are so many tour operators all offering differing packages with prices all over the place and rumours of each others tours being nutritious for bad quality or being a rip off. We spoke to a multitude of people who basically said it seemed to be luck of the draw in relation to the quality of the tour, basically translated it meant good luck with your selection, great, I was not confident with my track record to date! In the end we opted for a tour ... read more

Vietnam - Hoi An - Why does it always rain on me?! With the combination of a ten hour train journey, a one hour bus ride and a thirty minute motorbike ride I was pretty knackered by the time I reached Hoi An, but I was anticipating good times because so many travellers had informed me it was a great place to visit. After trawling around for twenty minutes I finally found a hotel for $10, things seemed a little more expensive here but you could still find reasonably cheap digs if you looked and bartered hard enough. As you will all know I hate parting with my cash so needless to say I was prepared to look around for a bargain. I decided it was time for a quick stroll before having a late lunch, ... read more

Dalat – A relaxing bike ride of two different varieties. After the chaos of Saigon I was really looking forward to heading to Dalat to explore the mountains and surrounding areas. There are a group of motor bike tour operators throughout the majority of Vietnam called the Easy Riders and like most things in Vietnam there are also many people pretending to be the Easy Riders. Once I located the original Easy Riders, well actually they located me within about 5 seconds of me stepping from my bus I arranged a tour for the following day. The tour was exceptional, one of the best tours I have done so far on my trip. My guide Lam was so knowledgeable, friendly and spoke fantastic English and the 7 hours on a bike flew by. I also don’t ... read more

Bangkok - The Hangover 2 and a nerve wracking time wondering if I would get out before the floods hit! Following my incredible time in Laos I was heading back to Bangkok for 5 days until my flight to Vietnam. I had read all about how the floods were affecting Thailand but I was somewhat surprised to arrive and see absolutely no signs of them??? If you happened to live in a state of isolation from the news you could easily be forgiven for thinking that all was normal. However the truth would ultimately reveal itself in dramatic fashion! I had several things I wanted to do in Bangkok and one of them was to shop for super cheap clothes and electronics, genuine originals of course, ok maybe not but where else can I buy a ... read more

Chiang Rai – Some unexpected delights on the way to Laos. I have to confess here I hadn’t read too much about Chiang Rai and I didn’t know what to expect apart from the lonely planet advised that it was a bit of a transit hub with not a great deal to do. When I was explaining my route to Maam and my thoughts about Chiang Rai she suggested I give it a look because it was quite interesting and some of the places and sights along the way were well worth going to. Who am I to question valuable local knowledge so I went with Maam’s suggestions and I’m very pleased I did. The only way I could get to see everything in the time I had available was to go as part of an ... read more