Tuesday 13th Breakfast by the lake and then we visit the local visit to wander round and look at the houses. Unfortunatly we couldn't see inside any of them but we did pass 2 locals milling corn. And went down to the river to witness some tourists on elephants and the locals tree trunk boats out on the water. Then we were of past the paddy fields and up into the mountains passing pine and bamboo forests. We stopped for a lovely lunch at what would be the equivalent of or motorway stops but this was just one concrete building. We [View Full Entry]

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Thur 15th The bus stopped at it usual stops so the locals can try to sell the tourists stuff and as I came out of the toilet (the poshest one ever where you had to change your shoes for flop flops so not to make the floor dirty) I bumped into Malin and Sara (the Sweedish girls). They had got the bus all the way from Nha Trang that morning. They were travelling with a different company so I new we'd get dropped at different points on arriving at HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City) but it was good to see them. [View Full Entry]

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Mon 12th On Saturday i was asked by a guy if I had heard of the Easy Riders. I'd been told about them by at least 3 people and told I had to do it. They are Motorbikers who take you from city to city showing you the sites from a locals point of veiw. However there is no real way of contacting them you just have to wait for them to come to you. So when Minh approached me and said I could cover the ground I wanted to cover in 3 days I couldn't resist. I avoided telling my [View Full Entry]

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Fri 9th March The overnight bus was really painful. I think I finally got some sleep at 1am. We arrived at 6am in Nha Trang checked into a hotel and went to sleep. When we woke we walked along the sea front to find some lunch. Its a nice beach and hot here but has a breeze. I found a windsurf hire place but the wind was too strong and the sea to choppy and at $20 an hour wasn't worth it. We stopped at the very posh bar to get ice cream, beer for the boys (see pic). I booked [View Full Entry]

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Tue 6th At 3am the bus stopped for food- I didn't eat. At 10 we had arrived at Hue and as we were late had missed the coneting bus so had to wait till 1.30 to get the next bus. We did a bit of sight seeing around Hue which has an old walled citidel. But again everything was shut I think this time as it was some holiday. Also as we hadn't had much lunch we gave up and went and had lunch. At 6pm we finally arrived in Hoi An went out for dinner and a drink but everything [View Full Entry]

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Mon5th Matt, Luke and I wandered around Hanoi. We saw the temple of Literature which was basically the first University over 1000 years ago. Then we went to where Ho Chi Min use to live but everything is shut on Mondays. We could have seen his body which sounds very weird- he's been embalmed or something. Others say they think it is a wax work of him. We walked back through some "botanical Gardens" which was a park that they charged tourists to walk through! It had some monkeys and birds i cages. One of the monkeys was very very fat. [View Full Entry]

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Wed 28th I got off the plane in Vietnam got to the customs but got stopped. The visa I’d applied for in August 06 was for Februarys 06 not 07! I had a choice fly back to where I’d come from or buy a new visa. I bought a new visa and am now $125 less well off. I then got minibus into town and went to hotel that Matt and Luke (from Laos) were staying in. As I had got held up in the airport they had gone out. Unfortunately the hotel was fully booked - I tried a couple [View Full Entry]

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Tue 27th Feb On the bus yesterday met Katie and Nick and so they became the next pair for me to tag on to! They had to sort out there Vietnam visa so I had a lie in and met up with them at 12. Siem Reip is a busy bustling large town … well I’ll let Pete explain!!... “we really weren’t prepared for the riot that greeted us off the bus. Christ I thought Siem Reap was bad! We could hardly get off the bus for the amount of taxi drivers grabbing your arm, trying to get your attention, asking [View Full Entry]

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Fri 23rd Up early- really early (3am early) to catch flight from Vietien to Siem Reip. Met 2 canadian guys who got caught out by the departure tax and the lack of ATM’s in Laos. When we arrived in Cambodia we went to same hotel. Looks like Jordan and Mike are stuck with me for next few days!! We went to the Blue Pumpkin in town for breakfast/lunch. Is very white inside with air con and sofa beds. I left the boys to go to some of the temples. We were all getting 3 day passes but they had an extra [View Full Entry]

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Check out my video at the top of the page (thing that looks like a film strip) Sun 18th Feb Time for the Gibbon Experience and the reason I spent 2 days on the boat. This was recommended to me by Pete-Thanks and I have stolen a bit of his blog to explain what it is. (http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/Bokeo-Province/Bokeo-Nature-Reserve/The-Gibbon-Experience/blog-86115.html) Ok, I'll start off by giving you a little background on The Gibbon Experience as an project. It is set in the Bokeo Nature Reserve. The reserve is located around 3 hours by car north of Huay Xai very close to th [View Full Entry]

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