S E Asian whirlwind tour catch up!

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Well I knew this would happen. Start off all wordy and enthusiastically blogtastic, then forget to do it in a few places, then the thought of re-capping the last 2weeks seems like a chore, then all of a sudden we're 2weeks away from going home.
Not keen on leaving things the way it is, and as i got a few minutes to spare before we cross over to Thailand from Laos, I'm gonna try and do a last minute ketchup.

So for anyone who might give a toss, here i go, Suko + craig's whirlwind tour highlights...

VIETNAM
Saigon was mental, seemingly huge, busy and noisy and hot ofcourse - I liked it. We stayed in a really twee (almost chintzy) flowery guesthouse (outside the generally crappy tourist / backpacker area), which happened to be off one of a few alleys in that area with loads of street food (always a good move, though we didn't make use of them as much as we could have, Craig a bit noddled-out at this point). Vietnamese food is great, its not all noodles ofcourse. and their coffee is wicked!!
We didn't make it to the Cu Chi tunnels, as we were feeling a bit rushed for time and all the travel agents had some awful tacky tour posters that seemed to be saying 'come to Cu Chi tunnels, it's fun!' - slightly off-putting...Excuses aside, we did go to the War remnants museum, which had sections on the gruesome torture of the VC soldiers in the POW camps in the South, loads of photographs - some famous - from the 'American War' ('Vietnam War'), lots of big machines, tanks planes, helicopters etc.

Moving swiftly on -
It was then TRAIN-TRAVEL-TIME, woohoo!
First leg: We got the Reunification Express Northwards (SE4) to Da Nang - we got a soft sleeper class,
super comfy and got a good nights sleep after an extended chat with an American Vietnamese guys whose voice was too loud. Nice guy though. We got to see some beautiful views out of the train the next morning, a chance for me to take more non-discript photos out of the train window.
This was our journey to Hoi An, which doesn't have a station, and which is a beatiful town well preserved with lots of character...but somehow slightly spoiled by the tourism - in that it's quite pricey, a bit kind of snobby. A bit like Canterbury, if you like. But it's very quiet with it and a welcome change when you just dropped in from a place like Saigon.

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