Hue? Huh? Hue? Hey? The first thing that struck us in Hue was the rain, and it pretty much continued until we left. The citadel was being renovated and the boat trips to the temples were writen off due to the weather so we headed off to Hoi An and were welcomed to an intimate little town with pretty houses, friendly locals and more importantly sunshine. It was so hot in fact that we went for a cheeky swim in the hotels pool which was possibly the closest experience you could get to swimming around the Arctic circle. Alas on our day trip to the My Son temples we got well and truly drenched, and, shock of all shocks, our minibus broke down so upon getting to the tourist entrance of the temples we begrudgingly bought ... read more

End of the China trip With five nights of Hong Kong ahead of us we had our farewell group dinner near the markets in Kowloon Bay, Paul ordered the chicken's feet and by the look on his face afterwards I think he wish he hadn't. Food faux pas aside we departed the following day for our home for the next four nights, the monolith monstrosity that is the Chung King Mansions. Don't let the mansions thing fool you, the decrepit old building was full of touts, crooks, immigrants and probably most worryingly Al Qaeda grafiti, only the best for us... The first night we stayed in one section of Chungy Mansions and our hostel was literally like the Shining, a long dark corridor, bed bugs, cockroaches and fusty damp air. The second night we moved to ... read more

The Chinese Countryside After a mammoth 22 hour train journey (which stupidly involved more drinking) we arrived at the holiday resort of Yangshou, with its marked-clad streets packed tightly between massive pointed skyscrapers of rock like a large upside-down egg carton. The town was absolutely heaving with Chinese tourists (we'd managed to time our trip to visit one of China's most popular tourist destinations with the Chinese national week holiday...) but that didn't stop us making the most of our two nights in the med-meets-oriental resort. On our first morning we left Fawlty Towers (true to its name we had a broken bathroom light and flooding toilet, which we eventually completely broke) for a cruise down the nearby river that ran through the fore-mentioned giant hills that dotted the whole area. After a bit of a ... read more

Back on the sleeper trains The first of our four sleeper trains in China was to get from Beijing to Xi'an, first impressions were that the Chinese sleeper trains were cleaner than the Indian ones (these trains had carpets, wow) and also more organised, our train actually left on time which couldn't be said for any of our Indian trains. The lights were turned off promptly at 10pm and the train was buzzing with activity at 6am so it was a pretty groggy Suze and Paul that pulled into Xi'an early in the morning. To be honest we really didn't know too much about Xi'an so when we got there we were pleasantly surprised by the cities mix of big city skyscrapers and small town charm. The Muslim Quarter with its markets, massage parlours and street ... read more

Relaxing in Goa After such a hectic schedule it was really nice to have a few days on the beach in one of the Worlds most beautiful beach resorts. The room and hotel were great and even the locals were much friendlier, as were there just before the start of the season it was much quieter than we thought it was going to be so at some points we had the entire beach to ourselves, with the occasional small Indian child asking us if were married. After exploring the quiet town of Colva during the day and generally getting sunburn, we went to a restaurant on the beach to watch the sunset, which we almost did until it started to pour it down monsoon style so we decided to havea few Indian beers instead and enjoy ... read more