rumble

There is a night market in the streets of the old quarter, but not really anything that’s worth buying!!! The only thing that Leah and I found to be any good was a wolly hat each – as its getting cold – and a stall that sells foooood!!!!! And its cheap as well which is always a good thing!!!! We made a day trip to theMuseumofEthnologyand got our first local bus there! Number 14 from the lake takes you almost there but we told the bus driver where we wanted to go and he just shouts at you when you are almost there! The bus back is from the other side of the road and its only 3000 Dong each so cheap enough! This museum is actually better than we first thought and acually takes a ... read more

Arriving by bus and getting into a hotel was easy enough. Walking around the old quarter theer are literally tuns of hotels all wanting your to money! We found a nice one for 12 dolla called Hanoi Municipal Hotel which had very clean rooms with tv, fridge and a helpful reception desk/ tourist information centre/booking office!!!!!! We were totally shattered and thought it best to quickly go out and get some street food from the many places that are on every corner – we had a nice soup – and then an early night! Walking around in the morning re realised how manic this city really is! There are bikes and cars crowding every street and its amazing how there are not more accidents – there are a lot but there should be more!!! Every available ... read more

5pm was our pick up time and this plush mini bus rocks up at 1 minute past! Cant believe our luck that its turned up on time in Lao – as everything is always much later that it says it is! Well, as it turned out, just over an hour later and with 3 complete circuits of the city done, we are still sitting in traffic a few minutes from the bus station. The bus we booked is a VIP sleeper bus and all the busses in the station have VIP written on then but some are very much from this status! Our bus on the other hand – was so crappy that it didn’t have VIP written on the side and after being rushed to our double sleeper seats by the driver – the spare ... read more

So arriving and finally finding somewhere to stay we found out the this place has an amazzzzing food market where you can pay 10,000 lip for a plate and load it up as much as you want and then they take it off you and warm it up! So naturally I had a competition with Leah that we see who can pile the plate up the most…… I won by a long shot!!!!! There are some great plaes to eat here as well and there is a big French influence about as well so great baguettes filled to the brim with what ever you want and cheap once again! We actually went and had one every day fort he entire time that we were here as they were just so god dam good! Christmas was fast ... read more

So when we arrive at the border of Thailand there are no problems what so ever! We get our exit stampfor free and then head down to the water to catch one of the many longtailed boats that line the water. Jumping on one and disembarking was the hardest part about the 10 minute journey but we both made it dsafe and mostly not wet!! Only our feet got wet so its all alright! You literally walk into Loas and have to fill in a form and provide a picture – pay 35 dolla for the visa and then you carry on into the country! EASY AS THAT! We found a room and paid with Thai Bart which is accepter everywehre and went in search of an ATM which only pays out a maximum of 1,000,000 ... read more

Arriving in hailand was a piece of pi**!!!! Such an easy flight but having not slepted for nearly 2 days now we were both very tired and needed to get into Bangkok and find a room quick! That was the plan but you kow how easy plans change! On arriving at the airport and trying to find the bus into town – we were told that it had stopped about a month before so we decided to get the sky train in and tuk-tuk it the rest of the way. Hailing down one was more trouble than was worth! They kept saying that because if the flooding that they were not going there but we could still catch a bus but it took 2 hrs or something like that! So we crossed the road and found ... read more

The morning arrived and we ventured down to the boat! As soon as we got onto the respective boat it started to chuck it down and so we had to have all the sides up so couldn’t really see anything – not the best start I have to say!!!! No later than 20 mins later there was a brak in the clouds and the sun came out and luckily stayed out for the rest of the day. We boated around all day and had the biggest amount of food served to us all and all 4 of us were totally stuffed which was a nice change! Both Leah and I got on really well with the other two Jenny and Wayne and we all had a grat laugh with some beers and rum that we took ... read more

So we arrived in Trivandram quite early and as usual I was starving!!! Across from the train station there was an Indian coffee house which does the best food all the time and there are loads all around the country and its just sooo cheap!!! This building is graet as well as its totally round. You walk in and have to walk up like a cork screw until you find a table, which you don’t know if there is any left until you walk right up to the end, lucky, there was one spare! A quick masala dosa and a coffee sorted us out and off to find a room! Every where we look there seemed to be hotels but they were all far too expensive! After looking at some horrific ones as well we found ... read more

The monsoon rain was falling and we made ourselves to the bus station – which is about 7km outside of Chennai. So a bus there taking over 40 minutes and picking its way through the huge puddles that had formed from the nights rain fall, it was a total pain. Arriving at the bus terminus and finding out that there was no busses to Mamallapuram because the drivers didn’t want to drive along the roads – even though they were still going another 2 hrs further along the same road to Pondicherry??? After waiting for about an hr and talking to a few French travels – we boarded the bus. After seeing the sign for only 7km left of our journey – the bus pulls over to review a totally flat tyre and NO SPARE!!!??? The ... read more

So we started our 28hr train ride with no one basically on the train and thought that it would be wonderful it if stayed like that – how wrong we were! It took about 20 minutes and 2 train stations to completely fill the carriage up with a mixture of bags, toys, and generally other rubbish that the Indians like to travel with, and of course the multi Indians that also get on (book one seat and then have 3 people sitting/sleeping on it). I just don’t know how they get away with it! But there we go! The actual journey was alright and waking up in the morning after a relatively quite night we both felt like we were alright and refreshed. Sitting up on the top bunks for most of the day and gorging ... read more