OK OK, it's late, it's very late and to make things worse we've squeezed 2 of the largest countries in SE Asia into one blog. Very lazy and inexcusable I know. But there are some pretty beach photos to look at! Thailand We arrived in Thailand at the beginning of December...long time ago now. I'm writing this blog entry from Ko Phi Phi in Thailand where we are on our second visit to the country having had a 5 week break in Malaysia which was very much needed.... To be honest our first foray into the Land of Smiles wasn't the [View Full Entry]

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Sabaidee! I know this blog is very late but Laos has that effect on a person. They call Laos the "Land of a Thousand Elephants". I'm not so sure about that, we only saw about 5. But the country definitely lives up to it's reputation of being the most unspoilt and friendly land in SE Asia. We spent a throroughly enjoyable 3 weeks travelling through the country eating sticky rice and drinking the superb Beer Lao, in the company of our new Swiss friends. We met Karin and Marcel during our border crossing and they became our travel companions through Laos. [View Full Entry]

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After the darkness and grittiness of Phnom Penh, we were in need of some relaxation. A mere minnow in terms of beach tourism, Cambodia is nonetheless determined to hold its own with the best of them, ie Thailand and become the next big destination. However there is beach tourism and then there is dodgy tourism. Recently introduced, stringent laws in Thailand mean that it is no longer the cheap and easy choice for sex tourists so what have they done instead? Gotten the ferry over to Sihanoukville to take advantage of an even poorer and more desparate society. Sihanoukville itself is [View Full Entry]

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With great reluctancy we left Saigon and Vietnam and boarded yet another bus for yet another interminable journey, this time to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Our collective knowledge of Cambodia was limited more or less to what we heard about the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970's and also embarrassingly enough that Tomb Raider was filmed there.. Well not long after the bus crossed over the border into Cambodia and had a quick rest stop, we had our first taste of the extreme poverty and desparation that there is here. Street children surrounded the bus, carrying their wares for sale. They [View Full Entry]

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30 days just flew in Vietnam, perhaps because it seemed like more of a holiday to us than the whole "fighting for survival"in China. Saigon was our way of going out with a bang! The largest city in Vietnam, with over 5 million inhabitants and thus of course the most motos. We weren't sure how we'd like it, having heard stories of unending streams of motos, drive by muggings and general dodginess. But after 4 nights there we can say it is a fantasic, crazy-and yes rundown with a hint of dodginess- city. Saigon and the surrounding area bore the brunt [View Full Entry]

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From one beach on to another...Anyone would think we are on holidays and not hardcore cheapass backpackers. Well it wasn't quite a direct move. We went via the mountain town of Dalat, a favourite of Vietnamese honeymooners. Apparently they like pissing rain and cockroach infested hotels. True Romance. We stayed one night. The image of the cockroach on its back, legs in the air like some ham actor will stay with me forever. Vile Hotel. Boring town. I'm wondering how to pad out the blog entry for Mui Ne. We stayed 8 nights in total, quite a long time. But we [View Full Entry]

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My My I am getting behind with this blogging lark, so I better write everything about Nha Trang down while it's still fresh in my mind. I'll start with a rant. I haven't had one in a while. fecking An Phu the stupid Open Bus Tour company. They are nothing but a bunch of sadists. Its a 12 hour bus journey from Hoi An to Nha Trang. Bad enough but they gave us the oldest bus in town with a driver better suited to the dodgems. We were stuck down the back behind some chain smokers who thought it fine to [View Full Entry]

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And down south we go... After leaving Halong Bay bang on time to avoid Typhoon Lekima we had a night bus journey ahead of us to reach Hue, the ancient imperial capital of Vietnam. Having been deeply traumatised by the Chinese sleeper bus experience and beds that could only fit Chinese people and contortionists we were quite happy to be on a regular seat aircon coach. The 16 hour journey wasn't too bad, or perhaps we're just hardcore slummers at this point. Hard to tell. We had barely begun to descend the steps out of the bus when the touts arrived [View Full Entry]

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After the relative homogony of China, Vietnam is a not at all unwelcome full frontal assault on the senses. We decided on the bus option to get us out of the PRC into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Seven hours on a bus, not my idea of a fun filled day but it was easy, cheap and uneventful although crossing the border on foot was a bit like a cattle mart. Oh and on the bus I met a girl from Ballinrobe of all places, who is great friends with Frank! It just goes to show there are only about 100 [View Full Entry]

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So after the drama that was the Tiger Leaping Gorge we had to backtrack to get onto our chosen route. This involved a high speed 3 hour bus journey back to Dali (including 2 nights at the Chateau de Filth, which we decided we really do love). Then another action packed bus journey (this time 5 hours) to Kunming and one night at the Camellia Hotel (of dodgy breakfast buffet fame). Thankfully we were able to procure our tickets to Guilin quite quickly, and one pretty non eventful hard sleeper experience and 2 hour bus ride later we reached Yangshuo, one [View Full Entry]

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