We arrived in Nha Trang early in the morning, and had a 2 hour wait for our connecting bus up to Da Lat. The journey took about 5 hours, and the last 3 were very steep and windy, and rather nerve wracking if you looked at how close we were to the steep cliffs on either side! We arrived mid afternoon, and decided not to stay at the hotel we had been dropped off at, despite their best efforts. Jen and Tor headed off to look for accommodation, and after about an hour and many hotels, managed to find us a [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Danang the next morning after a marathon 16 hour train ride, feeling surprisingly refreshed after a rather decent sleep on the train. We quickly caught a taxi to Hoi An, half an hour away. We were dropped off at a hotel again recommended to us (thanks guys!) and decided to stay here. Hoi An is a beautiful, charming small town filled with French colonial buildings, a beautiful beach which is 20 minutes away by bicycle, a river which at night is filled with colourful lanterns. But the thing which Hoi An is most famous for is it's tailors, [View Full Entry]

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After arriving back from Sapa at 5am, we headed to Hoan Kiem lake to observe the morning rituals of the Hanoians. This involved walking around the lake (in one direction only please!), extremely bizarre stretches and exercises, and various groups performing exercises as instructed by a loud speaker attached to a tree. We eventually found somewhere open for breakfast, then headed back to the tour office to wait for our pickup to Halong Bay. The street was, as usual, full of street sellers with fruit, vegetables, meat and flowers for sale. A loud siren announced the approach of the police, an [View Full Entry]

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After arriving at Lao Cai train station bright and early, we were again herded onto a minibus, and had to wait there about half an hour for the next train to arrive. Fully loaded up (they don’t believe in spare seats in Vietnam!) we headed off for Sapa which was a beautiful 1 hour drive up into the mountains, although Jen slept most of the way so missed it all. A rather surreal sight awaited us there - about 50 Black Hmong girls and women in their full traditional dress waiting outside the hotel where we were dropped off! Was this [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Hanoi early in the morning and headed straight to a hotel recommended to us by JD & Abra, which was very nice so we decided to stay there, and also reserved a room for Simon and Tor (Jake's parents) who were arriving that night. We spent most of the day wandering around Hanoi , getting our bearings and investigating the different tours to Sapa and Halong Bay on offer, of which there were many, and they all seemed to be same same but not different. We were feeling pretty tired after our last few days of travelling and [View Full Entry]

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From Phnom Penh, we caught a bus up to Siem Reap to see the mighty temples of Angkor. We found ourselves a very nice hotel in Siem Reap with a swimming pool! We decided to keep our friendly tuk tuk driver to take us round the temples, and arranged to meet him at 4:45 the next morning to try to catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. We managed to get up in time, however the weather didn't come to the party and it was more a 'sky lightening' than an actual sunrise. It was still very amazing to see Angkor wat [View Full Entry]

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Phnom penh was a city of contrasts, and full of stark reminders of the atrocities carried out there so recently, and how far it has come in such a short time. We found a lovely little, very basic guesthouse to stay in, paying $6 a night! Here we discovered the joys of iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk - so good, yet so very bad for you! We spent our first day there at the Royal palace, which was full of beautful buildings, including the silver Pagoda, which has a solid silver floor and amazing gold and diamond Buddha statues. We [View Full Entry]

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We booked a two day cruise to make our way from Saigon to Phnom Penh. As you would expect in asia, there was some good and some bad, but mostly nothing like you would expect! We started off with a bus trip out of saigon to Cai Be, where we got on a boat to take us to some floating markets. It looked like most of the market had long gone home for the day but there were a few boats there with their wares displayed on a long stick. From there we were taken to a small shop on the [View Full Entry]

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Saigon is a crazy, crazy city! We have spent two days here and manged not to get run over by a motorbike - yet! We spent the first day walking around the city - to the war remnants museum, the reunfication palace and the ho chi minh city museum. The reunification palace (which was the South Vietnamese President's residence) was quite spectacular and has been preserved as it was since the fall of Saigon in 1975 when a vietcong tank drove through the fence and the north vietnamese flag raised over the palace. The war museum was rather graphic and gruesome, [View Full Entry]

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We're coming to the end of a fantastic 24 hours in Malaysia, at the airport waiting for our flight to Vietnam. It's been a nice introduction to Asia, a bit noisy and hot and busy and bustling, but I'm sure nowhere near as bad as where we're heading now! So we're easing ourselves in gently. Thanks to airpoints, we spent a night in an amazing hotel - The Shangri-La in Kuala Lumpur. We were on the wrong side of the hotel to see the towers but it was still an amazing experience, finished off by having our bed turned down and [View Full Entry]

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