Matt and Tyne

Hey Guys, Well I know chronologically this should be Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City but since we were only there for 1 day prior to leaving for Cambodia and we would be going back I'll save it for later. So we caught a direct bus from HCMC to Siem Reap which was pretty painless, don't quite understand the border crossing procedures there but it does work somehow. So the city of Siem Reap is basically there to serve and entertain tourists in between visits to Angkor Wat. Without rattling off too much info, Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century by the Khmer and is one of the largest religious complexes in the world. Originally dedicated to the Hindu god of Vishnu it now serves as a Buddist complex although all the original Hindu murals and ... read more

Hey Guys, Well after we arrived in Hoi An we're ready to Shop!! This place came highly recommended by Diane and other travellers as the place to have clothes tailored for cheap. After cruising around we soon found out why everything is so cheap since every store in town is a tailor shop all fighting for your buisness. We opted to check out every single shop in town prior to commiting to anything, which in hind sight was probably a waste of time and we should have just gone into the first shop and dropped a bundle to have everything we've ever wanted tailored made and been done with it! Oh well where's the fun in that! The city of Hoi An is mostly scattered around the Thu Bon river and yes it's another UNESCO World ... read more

Hey Guys, Well after resisting all the Touts offers to do a package tour from Hanoi to Cat Ba Island we opted to take the local buses and get there ourselves. Although it wasn't as smooth as a packaged tour might have been, it's more rewarding doing it yourself. That's not to say it's not without it's stress and headaches. We managed to get the bus to Haiphong and then after figuring out where the ferries to Cat Ba were we managed to walk to the docks, this is where following our Lonely Planet has screwed us again (although it has saved us a lot too). We were greeted by a lady on a scooter just as we were about to reach the docks telling us to hurry the boat was leaving. We were mis-informed that ... read more

Hey Guys, After surviving what was probably the most crazy mountain, limited visibilty, bus ride since South America we arrived in Vang Vieng also known as the hell hole or the Alcoholics Disneyland depending on what you like and who you ask. The place is pretty rural and although it is backdropped by huge beautiful Limestone mountains the rest of town is fairly shitty. We ended up getting a great bungalow at the "Otherside Bungalows" which is surprisingly enough on the otherside of the river! To get there you just cross a lovely little bamboo bridge, that also doubles as a road/highway for locals on scooters, God Bless the strength of Bamboo! We were pleasantly surprised that when we got checked into our bungalow Jon and Lucy were our neighbours. This was hilarious since they weren't ... read more

Hey Guys, Well we've arrived in Laos! We ended spending a night in Huay Xai and then headed North the next morning to Luang Namtha to do some trekking. We ended up arrivng at the booking office just as the last spot on their tour was filled but in a turn of events we met a nice French couple who were also looking to trek so we joined up and formed our own group. The funniest part is that the day before Tyne makes me agree on not doing a super hard trek and only doing a 2 day easy to moderate one. Well the french couple suggest the difficult/ advanced 3 day trek and before Tyne can say WTF I've signed us up. I swear sometimes it's like we're so in sync I can read ... read more