Here's a piccie of the ring Steve presented Orla with at the summit of Mount Kinabalu. How could she resist??! [View Full Entry]

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Koh Chang Missing all our family and friends. We raised a toast to you all from Khlong Prao beach this morning. [View Full Entry]

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So it was another early start, up at 7 o'clock so we could get some breakfast at the market and make it back to the hotel in time for the 8:30 speedboat. We had a 7 hour journey ahead of us but it was pleasant. Going anywhere by boat avoids crazy drivers, bumpy roads and dust. The border crossing between Vietnam and Cambodia was like none we've ever seen before, with lots of boats and coconut trees. It was quite quiet, apart from the hawkers selling snacks, kids wanting to carry our bags for a tip and black marketeers exchanging currency. [View Full Entry]

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The bus took about 5 hours to get to Ho Chi Minh City. It dropped us off in the heart of backpackersville and close to a couple of decent, cheap hotels we had read about in our guide book. Outside 1, a tout told us it was full. Of course we didn't believe him but when we went in to check, the receptionist confirmed what he said. The tout, waiting outside, said he would show us another hotel nearby. When we got there, they only had 1 room left, on the top floor (5 floors up) and at the front of [View Full Entry]

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En route to Dalat, we stopped for 15 minutes to look at a Cham tower and also had a lunch stop at about 11am!! We finally arrived in Dalat at 2pm. The minute we got off the bus, the heavens opened. The bus had stopped at their affiliated hotel, which was too expensive for us, so we dashed across the road and into a rundown looking hotel charging $5 a night - much more our style! We asked to look at a room and found that it was even more rundown than we were willing to put up with. However it [View Full Entry]

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We got the sleeper train to Hue at 8pm. Before the train left , Steve went to buy beer from a vendor on the platform. The beer was very expensive, just like railway stations everywhere, and he tried haggling with the lady unsuccessfully. When he tried charming her, she threatened to charge him extra! On-board, we were joined in our compartment by a middle-aged German woman, Charlie, and her American boyfriend, Eric. A bit of an odd pair really, seemed they hadn't been together long and were still working each other out. Orla also noted that Charlie wasn't wearing a bra [View Full Entry]

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We landed in Hanoi airport at about 4pm. We'd booked a hostel over the internet and the owner, David, arranged a free taxi to pick us up, which was great. We were staying at A-Z Queen's Hostel in the Old Quarter. When we checked in, David's sister was on reception and she made us cup of tea - lovely! We started to browse through tour brochures in reception, then she said we could take the information up to our room to have a good read. Thank God! When we came back down, David had arrived and it was like being hit [View Full Entry]

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So much for the bus taking 10 hours! We arrived at Shenzhen 14 hours after boarding and a horrendous night. The journey was really uncomfortable - the beds too short, the road so bumpy - we got about 2 hours kip all night. We couldn't wait to get off. We walked to border immigration which was a quick, painless process and made our way to Noble Hostel in Causeway Bay. Our 'Rough Guide' said it was a good place to stay. We found it easily enough and the owners were friendly, although they wouldn't give us a discount for staying for [View Full Entry]

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At Guilin airport, there was a CITS-operated shuttle bus to the city centre. We explained that we wanted to get a bus to Yangshuo so the shuttle stopped near the train station, where the Yangshuo buses also congregate. As soon as we approached the station, a tout intercepted us and told us the bus was about to leave and cost 50 Yuan. We knew it sounded too much and had read in the guide book that minibuses cost about 10Y per person. We tried to haggle but she wasn't having any of it. Next thing, a different woman appeared and told [View Full Entry]

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The bus took 5 hours to get to Wuhan from Yichang, 1 hour of it spent crawling through Wuhan traffic. When we arrived, no taxis would take us to Wuhan Pathfinder Hostel; eventually a woman in a private car who was hanging around the taxi rank took us for 20Y, which is way too much for the length of journey. She didn't know where it was and we had a badly printed map from the internet. We took a wrong turn and she seemed to be getting exasperated. Bet she was wishing she'd charged 30Y! We knew it was somewhere near [View Full Entry]

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