Hi all I am writing this from the Big Blue Backpackers at Green Point in Cape town. We arrived here at 11am local time after a good flight. I managed to squeeze in 3 films on route so enjoyed the journey and was able to disregard the turbulance. As usual Ry slept for most of the way. To my atonishment, there was a driver waiting for us at the airport and duely adhering to the free airport pick up from our hostel. Amasing. First impressions are good. We had a little snooze when we arrived at our hostel and then ventured [View Full Entry]

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I thought I would restart my travel blog as it was nice to read back on last year's adventure. The plan is to do the Garden route and on to the wild coast to finish in Durban. I hope you enjoyed reading last year and shall enjoy this year's edition! Happy reading :) [View Full Entry]

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After alate start - all this travellig is taking its toll - we ventured out into the dry and the warm to investigate the Ho Chi Minh Complex. Within was the ginormous mausoleum but Mr Minh wasnt in as he has gone to Russia for embalming maintenance - how funny. From there were ventured into the Botanical gardens where most of the youth of the city were having kisses and cuddles - very wierd in such a public place. Eventually we were allowed into the Ho Chi Minh museum itself (it shuts for a very long lunch) and were amased to [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Hanoi at the early hour of 5.30 am. A little bleery eye we packed our things and headed out into the jungle of what is meant to be the toughest city of Vietnam. Determined not to get ripped off we walked straight past the hoards to taxis drivers and marched into the then quiet streets of the city. Amasingly Ryan navigated us straight to our destination of what we thought to be our pre booked accomadation. On arrival it was shut so we sat paitenly outside. A few minutes passed when a boy came up to us saying [View Full Entry]

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Determined to not let the rain get the better of us we arranged a sightseeing tour on the back of a couple of motorbikes. We started the day at 8am and we were disappointed to see it was still raining. We were armed with ponchos and hard hats and off we went. First stop was an acient bridge built in 17th century. Travelling through back street it was really interesting to see real Vietnamese as their day to day business. As we progress we soon realised we could not make it to the bridge as the perfume river had busrt its [View Full Entry]

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Keep to move on but sad to say the beautiful town of Hoi An - we took a bus to Hue. It was an excellant bus ride with only 5 people on and plenty of room to spead out. Ryan did his usual and fell asleep and I absorbed the ranging jungle mountains neighbouring the South China sea. Unfortunatley the weather was not good enough to take photos but it was certainly memorable. We arrived in the city of Hue by 12 and set off to the train station to book our tickets to Hanoi, this time determined to avoid any [View Full Entry]

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Today we did a little tour in the near by mountain to see some ruined temples to escape from the shopping. It was ok but nothing compares to Angkor so there is little more to say about our morning. Returning back to the town we had a little lunch as it started to rain. We did plan to see the old houses of teh city on a walking tour but could see little point in the pouring rain. So we went back to our room and flicked on a film to have a quiet afternoon. In the evening we planned to [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Da nang by lunch time and on route we befriended an american couple who made the journey go quite plesantly. We had a cabin to ourselves and has a very comfortable night's sleep. Mind you we paid for it in commission to a travel agent as our new found friends booked their beds for considerably less. However they had to share a 6 sleeper cabin with a thin matress so we didnt feel to hard done by. On mass we departed from the train station looking for a taxis to Hoi An. We managed to negogitate a good [View Full Entry]

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We set off at 8am for teh town of Cu Chi to see the informous tunnels for themselves. Again we were in tourist heaven but it was teh cheapest way to see as much as we wanted in the short space of time. It started like a school lesson and of course it was very VC prone, then we were walked around a path with mock areas of the tunnel set up. All quite mundane. Then horror of horrors we were taken to the firing range. Why on earth do people want to fire the same machinery which was responsible for [View Full Entry]

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After the adventures from the previous night of taking Ryan to the ER we woke up late in our nice little guest house. Today we set out to see sights and learn stuff. We started at the Reunifaction palace - a 60's styled mega palace complete with a helipad, token tanks on the lawn and a 2 floor concrete bunker full on Churchill style war rooms - all facinating. After lunch we headed to the War Reminance museum. The hoards of school children ruined it slightly but it was a chilling experinace nethertheless. We saw tiger cages, deformed unborn baby in [View Full Entry]

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