K - Whilst in Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) we visited the War Remnants Museum covering the American War. It consists mainly of photographs including many by journalists killed during the war. There is also a very moving section highlighting the ongoing effects of Agent Orange and other chemicals used during the conflict - a second generation of children still being born with severe disabilities. It is thought provoking and highly recommended if you are ever in Saigon. Although HCMC is a nice enough City we decided to spend our last couple of nights in Vietnam in the Mekong Delta. The Delta is a popular tourist trip from HCMC but in order to make life harder we elected to travel on our own. After all nothing beats spending a day a little confused and nervous as ... read more

K- A rare mistake by our usually infallible head researcher led us to take an overnight train to Dong Hoi in order to tour the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) in central Vietnam. On arriving at 8am we discovered that a trip to the DMZ was going to be impractical but fortunately our infallible researcher had a back up plan and by 9am we were in a taxi heading to Phong Nha Cave - a UNESCO World Heritage site that no-one appears to have heard of. Or at least no-one we have so far met on our travels here. On arrival we met Tony, an Aussie who was trying to make sense of the rather un-user friendly price board. It was in English but may as well have been in Vietnamese. After some help by our taxi driver ... read more

K - We traveled from Bagan to Kalaw on the worst bus of our trip to date. We are used to uncomfortable chicken busses but they are usually cheap. This bus had cost us $14 each and my seat was collapsing (poor guy behind), there was no suspension to speak of and to top it all it left at 4.30am – and we were stuck on it for nearly 10 hours. One of those days when you question the decision to travel on a budget! It was worth it though. Kalaw was the start point for a 3-day trek to Lake Inle and it was fantastic. Our group of 3 French people, a Lithuanian, a Swiss and 3 Brits - all of different ages (21-58) - gelled really well and we had a great laugh. The ... read more

Kipling wrote a poem about it, Frank Sinatra and Robbie Williams sang about it and now I’m blogging about it. Somehow I doubt my words will become as well known as theirs but here goes. .. (FYI, Kate thought I didn't know who Kipling was, but as we Brits all know - Mr Kipling bakes exceedingly good cakes!) We arrived in a dark but already active Mandalay at 5am in the morning after an overnight bus journey from Yangon and a tuk-tuk into the city from the bus station. The journey from Yangon was pretty comfortable if a little cold in a deluxe reclining seat with the air conditioning blasting. Fortunately our bus was not decked out in full Barcelona livery like the one we saw at the service station otherwise Kate may have refused to ... read more

K- Actually six nights but who is counting?! We are loving Bangkok. I will let the photos do the talking for the impressive major sights (Grand Palace, Wat Po etc) but although they are spectacular what we are really enjoying is (as usual) the food. There is food everywhere. Every type of Thai cuisine you have ever heard off plus alot you havent! It is impossible to walk more than about 5 meters down a street without being able to buy a different snack - satay, pad thai, mango & sticky rice, noodle soup, Tom Yam, scorpions, grasshoppers (yep - see photos!) etc etc. Everywhere. For 50 cents to a dollar a piece! We are in heaven and it is fortunate that we are also walking miles each day as the calorie count must be obscene! ... read more