Around the world in 367 days Ed and Gemma Well here we are on the 4th July, a year and a day since the first leg of our trip, from London to Toronto, and many countries and experiences later. We still have to pinch ourselves that this has all happened. It has been an awesome adventure and one we will be remembering for the rest of our lives. As we return home jobless and homeless it has to be said that we do not regret this journey we have taken for one minute, and in fact we know how lucky [View Full Entry]

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In the morning we experienced a large ball of fiery gas in the air, we believe some people call it a 'sun'! It was a lovely way to spend the morning of our last full day, messing about in the sea and pool as well as allowing the body to get some vitamin Ds (is that the right vitamin you get from the sun rays, we are not too sure). We celebrated our last evening with a bottle of Moet, and a fantastic dinner - the food in this hotel is absolutely amazing on any scale and is completely out of [View Full Entry]

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Remembering this time last year, we did not don our wedding outfits and hope The Leo Green Experience would turn up at the pool side to while away the afternoon. Instead we went on a morning excursion to the south part of the island, visiting places like the pearl farm that 'makes' pearls for the Australian market. Both of us learnt something new today about how the pearl is made - "a skilled technician implants a nucleus from a Mississippi pig toe mussel". Then we went to the most southerly tip of the island to the island's second town - [View Full Entry]

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Today was a lot like yesterday afternoon, just with more thunder storms and A LOT of rain. Gemma read and read and Ed worked on his plan of attack on the Fund Management world. The resort here is great, maybe not worth the money we are paying for the service we are getting (the staff have to pass a 'Say yes to anything whether you understand it or not' test to work here) but the place is virtually empty and it is ideal for us to relax and contemplate the time ahead. We are just tired and ready to come back [View Full Entry]

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So this is our last onward journey to our final destination of this year away - Phu Quoc Island. We have been looking forward to this ‘break’ and destination for a while now as this means we are coming to the end of our trip and we are now able to get our heads around returning home. After the hour long journey to the island we were met at the airport and taken to the Le Veranda resort where it has rained ever since. There is a terrible storm over the eastern islands of Thailand and the edge of the storm [View Full Entry]

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Today meant we went on one of our last guided tours of our year away. This we did in the exact way we have liked all along - privately. We drove the 70km out of Saigon to Cu Chi, which is home to a labyrinth of tunnels that the locals have developed since the French resistance and grew with avengence in the Vietnam war. The tunnels played a major part in the survival of the guerillas and prolonging the way long enough for the Americans to lose heart and withdraw. By being able to shift their forces in secret the Americans [View Full Entry]

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So then, a full year since the last money went into our bank account, but we think we’ve had pretty good value for that money. Today we set about the main sights of Saigon and took in the Reunification Palace, the War Remnants Museum and the Ho Chi Minh City museum. The palace was better than we’d expected and was where the Communist tanks headed when they captured Saigon in 1975. It’s no Versailles though and makes us think of a 1960s hotel (with some influence from the Soviets) that used to be plush, has now clearly declined, but whose [View Full Entry]

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The train arrived in Saigon (officially Ho Chi Minh city but the people who live here ignore decrees from the government up north and still prefer Saigon) at a nice and practical 5am. Since we hadn’t had the best nights sleep (see yesterday) we were keen to find a guesthouse that would let us check-in early, or very early in this case. We tried one that we’d been recommended but there was no sign of life there and whilst walking to another one we tried a couple of hotels to see if they’d offer us an off-season bargain. After a couple [View Full Entry]

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We wave farewell to the resort not exactly thrilled at the prospect of another overnight train. It was going to be our final use of public transport though, planes excepted, so that was good! The trains were delayed and for some reason our train, the 1pm S3 to Saigon, turned up before the 11am S1 to Saigon. Understandably plenty of people wanted to change from S1 to S3 but they weren’t allowed and were kept waiting for another few hours. We made our way to our compartment and found it was 3 beds on either side and with the other 4 [View Full Entry]

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A day of little action except for collecting all our newly made clothes. The only other point of note was the massage that came as part of our honeymoon package. Gemma enjoyed the relaxation, if not the vertebrae separating, but for Ed it was half an hour of feeling very very uncomfortable. A return visit to a massage parlour is a long way off. However that does remind us of a story we heard from one of our fellow passengers on the Halong Bay junk. An American guy called France but who didn’t seem to have ever been abroad before [View Full Entry]

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