We left Nha Trang on Sunday, taking the bus up to Dalat in the highlands. The trip there was a bit different to the rest of our journeys so far, as we climbed to 1500m and away from the flat lands we'd been in up to this point. We climbed for about 45 minutes on a steep mountainside road which clung to the cliff and turned sharply as it went. All the while the driver continued to take calls on his mobile whilst overtaking small trucks. About an hour further up the road we reached the small city of Dalat, which [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Hoi An was a smooth process as we boarded the night sleeper bus at 1900hrs on Tuesday, ready for a peaceful journey south to our next port of call. It became a bit tougher when we pulled ourselves up onto the top bunks and realised that there was no chance of getting a decent night's sleep. At times like that I wish I was five inches shorter, but I'm not and there was no way I was able to lie flat like every other passenger seemed to be doing quite comfortably. Catherine was in similar state and she had to [View Full Entry]

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Thought I'd take the strain off Nic and write a little blog whilst he's getting stressed out downloading photos! We left Hue this morning after a rainy two days and began the 5 hour bus journey to Hoi An. The packed bus crossed bridges I wouldn't have even felt safe walking over, through deep mud, over-looking jungle and rice fields, over-taking oil tankers (on blind corners at ridiculous speeds with even bigger oil-tankers flying round the corner the opposite directions). Twas a bit crazy but we arrived safe and sound! The biggest hazard on the way here was the filthy squat [View Full Entry]

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We have left Hanoi behind now and travelled south to Hue. We got the overnight sleeper from Hanoi at 2300hrs last night, which rattled and rolled its way down the coast, dropping us off here at around 1100hrs this morning. The sleeper was way better than I had expected, expecially since I could lie fully flat on my back without having my spine compressed, which led to a decent night's sleep. Catherine didn't get so much so she's upstairs at the moment trying to catch up (the weather is postively British outside, not ideal for sightseeing). We had to share the [View Full Entry]

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We managed to get out of Singapore unscathed and took a cheap(ish) flight up to Hanoi to properly begin our trip. This is where we had planned to head after going to Bangkok, so now we're back on track. We arrived into the airport at 2000hrs and found a cab to the city. Our guide book said there was a fixed price of $7.50 for all the airport taxis so when we got in and were told it would be double that, we straight away thought we'd been fleeced. I tried weakly to barter, to no avail. The taxi ride was [View Full Entry]

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Thought it was about time for me to add a little entry since it's far too hot to do anything else. Apologies for my apauling spelling and grammar! We've had to book our own flights up to Hanoi on Sunday as our only other choice would've been to either fly back home or to a military base camp just outside of Bangkok!....thought my mum wouldn't appreciate me choosing the latter option so we did our own thing which has probably worked out for the best (and we've got a few more free nights in our posh hotel). Been exploring Singapore a [View Full Entry]

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Well we flew out of Heathrow as planned, and then our months of planning started to go down the drain. Before we boarded the flight we were all given letters from Quantas explaining that there was some civil unrest in Bangkok, and they'd keep us up to date with the situation. We thought it was just a formality for their insurance and didn't think much of it, especially when a couple of hours into the flight the captain announced that the situation had improved somewhat and we were on our way to Thailand as planned. We woke up at about 0600hrs [View Full Entry]

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It is two months today before we fly out of the UK to begin our six month round the world trip. It still feels like such a long way away, but we know that in reality it is not, and despite having sorted a lot of stuff out we still have lots to do before the big off. It is undoubtedly a bit square to start the blog so far in advance, but I wanted to record some of our plans for the trip, in terms of where we aim to go and some of the intended highlights. The planning of [View Full Entry]

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