I fear we have been lulled into a false sense of security. We took our first night train in Vietnam on Sunday night, and having had a couple of scary night train experiences in the past (Eastern Europe. Eugh.), our hopes weren't high. But I gotta tell ya - it was a joy! Grand little cabin with four beds (not six), air conditioning, a dinky little bedside table, and a lamp with frilly fringes! And before we even left the station a little man came around with his trolley, offering such delights as cold beer, coke and crisps. Are we really [View Full Entry]

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Wowsers. Haven't we had a scenery-filled couple of days. We skulked out of our hostel in Hanoi on saturday morning, with lame excuses of "meeting friends", but Dave knew. Dave knew we cheated and that we booked a trip with another company without checking with him first. So in the absense of an offer to arrange a taxi, we trudged across the city (20 kilo back packs in tow) to the Kangaroo Cafe. After a bit of hanging around, and a run in with the owner (who is a complete git) we got on our bus to Halong Bay. There were [View Full Entry]

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We've landed in MADLAND. Good mother of jaysus this city is manic. Crazy. Mental. All of the above. Why, why why do people say Bangkok is hectic? Bangkok is like Carrick on Shannon on a Sunday afternoon compared with this place. We flew in on Tuesday afternoon, and thank god we were able to arrange an airport pick up, cos as soon as we walked outside at least 15 nasty men started shouting at us, trying to usher us into a taxi. "Hello hello HELLLLLOOOOO. I TAKE YOU. I TAKE YOU CITY!" No you bloody don't. Once we got into OUR [View Full Entry]

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Our short little trip in Laos is coming to an end... we fly out to Hanoi this afternoon. Am a little apprehensive because all of the people we've met here say you are VERY glad to get the flock out of Vietnam by the time you're done, so I hope our experience is a relatively good one. Overall, I haven't really fallen in love with Luang Prabang as much as I expected, but I'm really glad we came. After much trepidation we managed to turn in for the night with Larry, who didn't follow up on his debut appearance. Yesterday morning [View Full Entry]

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Another day, another country...Does this mean the first "leg" of our trip is over? I think I've decided that South East Asia is our first proper leg, so that makes Laos next.....finger, or something similar. And anyway we'll be back in Thailand. Yesterday we reluctantly said goodbye to Chiang Mai for good, although we will be back in Thailand in a few weeks, though much further south. We spent our last full day checking out the new city, which is much busier than the old quarter, but I still really liked the place (and you wouldn't believe where a Starbucks can [View Full Entry]

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I'm in love. In fact, we all are. And his name's not Chad or Brad. Chiang Mai is a wonderful little city, and over the past few days it has provided the perfect antidote to the craziness of Bangkok. We left on an afternoon train (night train was fully booked) on Wednesday, with a daunting 15 hour journey ahead of us. Getting our rucksacks through the narrow doors of our carriage was tough enough!! I am obviously already turning into zen-like hippie type, because I loved every minute of the first seven or eight hours. Our seats were relatively comfortable and [View Full Entry]

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Finally we make breakfast! And lord wasn't it worth it..... there was a huge selection of healthy and greasy stuff, and even a little bloke making fresh omlettes to order! So with full and happy bellies we made our way to the city's main temples, and the Grand Palace. Only prob was the bloody thing was closed until the afternoon, so we found refuge from the heat in a posh little cafe about ten minutes walk away. Again, the heat is something serious, and the situation is not helped by the fact that we're wearing jeans and proper tops in order [View Full Entry]

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Yet again we failed to wake up in time for the hotel breakfast, but strong resolutions have been made to haul our asses out of bed in time tomorrow! I did nip down for a swim in the pool while the two ladies were still comatose. We decided we needed to see some real Bangkok today (enough of the prossies and fancy shopping centres) and hoped into a tuc tuc to the Khao San Road. Oh lord, our first tuc tuc - what an experience. Our driver was this skinny young Thai bloke who was highly amused by our screams as [View Full Entry]

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So much for no jet lag - we all slept in til 1.30pm!! We obviously needed it after the long journey. And darkened, air conditioned hotel rooms have a habit of dissolving all concepts of space and time. Groggy heads all round, we went to a cafe nearby for eggs and toast and then hit the Skytrain. We got out at Siam Square(a stop which I pretty much picked at random), and spent the rest of the day not really managing to get far beyond it. It's one of the most commercialised area of the city, and Siam Paragon was definitely [View Full Entry]

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Well, here we are!! After an extremely pleasant 11 hour flight from London (thanks to a sleeping tablet each from Claud - GOOD IDEA) we were greeted to a blast of hot Thai air as soon as we emerged from the airport in Bangkok. Thanks to prior instructions (cheers Val!) we avoided all offers of a taxi inside the airport building and instead went to the desk outside and negotiated a price, gave the address of our hotel and heaved our rucksacks in! It was about a 20 minute drive to the Grand President ESA on Sukhumvit. The hotel seemed like [View Full Entry]

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