Hi, my name's Adam and I'm from Croydon in South London. I'm travelling on a a fantastic journey with my mate, also called Adam. I'm going to South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
We left Hoi An and drove to the railway station at Da Nang to catch the Re-unification Express sleeper train to Saigon. it was a really good journey and I've never slept so well on transport so far! We arrived in Saigon about 5am and got a taxi to where the cheap hotels and bars were. Of course being 5am none of the hotels or guest houses were open yet so we found a 24hr bar called GO2 and had a beer while we waited for the hotels to open. It was quite disturbing though watching loads of seedy western men leaving with slutty Vietnamese women. I'm not sure but I could guess some of them looked like prostitutes... After checking into our cheap guest house (through a tailor's and with a bed so hard it ... read more
We spent a few days in Hoi An visiting our first real beach of the trip so far and the tailors in town. You can literally fill your wardrobe here getting everything made however you want it. We went to one place called Mr Xe and he was hilarious. He was basically the Vietnamese John Humpfries! There's also loads of souvenir shops and art for sale. I bought so much stuff because it was so cheap. I wish i could've bought more but my bag was already too full with stuff. One day they shut the roads by the river down to bikes because the Prince of Japan was in town. We saw him walking down the street at one point surrounded by the media. I also had some great food in Hoi An. There's one ... read more
we spent another couple of nights in Hanoi so i could find a new camera and Adam wanted to try and find the girl we was with in the Solace bar. he tried and failed unforunately! we left Hanoi on the 7th to get an overnight bus down to Hué in the middle of the country. was about a 12 hour drive. we only paid for a normal aircon bus but somehow managed to blag our way onto a sleeper bus. glad we did because met some cool people on the bus and hopefully i would be able to get some decent sleep. the funny thing is though that the entirely continent is made for people who are 6" shorter than westerners so spent a lot of the journey hunched! and of course i was woken ... read more
We left Hanoi on the train on 2nd to go to Haiphong so we could get a ferry to Cat Ba island and see Ha Long bay. We stayed a night in Haiphong which wasn't a great town. Not a lot there. Got a hydrofoil the next morning to Cat Ba island which is a beautiful island, only about 30km from top to bottom. We got a nicish hotel on the seafront in Cat Ba town and then paid about 4quid to rent a motorbike to explore the island. To say I've never driven a motorbike before, let alone been on the back of one until a week ago I think I did alright! There's no way I would drive one in one of the major cities because the traffic is a bit manic but on ... read more
We spent the next few days exploring Hanoi. I really love this city and could happily spend a long time here. Annoyingly the first day was Friday and most of the museums,etc are closed. But walking round the town is just brilliant. The area around Hoan Kiem Lake is beautiful and its great just walking along it in the evening just watching all the couples sitting by the lake enjoying the view. We walked round the military museum and Ho Chi Minh meseum the next day, as well as exploring the rest of the city. One night we saw a water puppet show in the Theatre at the northeast corner of the lake which is an absolute must if you visit Hanoi. A few quid for a ticket and you get to experience Vietnamese music played ... read more
We got the local bus to Nong Het, near the Laos-Vietnam border. It was amusing to see how much they packed the bus - full of people and cargo, including about 20 planks of 4x2 down the aisle! Was a right laugh and I guess we were a bit of novelty, one guy took a photo of us. I much prefer travelling the proper local way compared to the tour buses. We got to the border early in the afternoon and passed through a relatively easy passport control. They didn't really check our bags that much. I expected a country like Vietnam to be quite strict but obviously I was wrong. The border wasn't one of the major ones I assumed given the fact we were literally the only people there. The other side we tried ... read more
We stayed in Vang Vieng for another day of tubing. I can now see why people stay there as long as possible. It's a wicked place. This time we found the bar with a massive mud pit which was fantastic! On the 26th we got a local bus to Phonsavan and the Plain of Jars. I gotta say it wasn't the best journey to take on a tubing hangover, especially with the bus stinking as much as it did! Every time we stopped I had to run off to get some fresh air. I noticed the guy behind me as well who at one stage got out a AK47 type rifle from under his seat to check it over. We arrived in Phonsavan about 7-8 hours later. Its not the greatest of places and I'm glad ... read more
Woke up pretty hungover but a strang fry-up later I was set for the tubing. Adam and I went with John from the bus and Andrea and Kristin we had met last night. Basically tubing is floating down a river on a tractor tyre inner tube. There are about 6-7 bars along the way you stop at. We saw some people at the first bar who we had met last night. They said then they were gonna have a day off today to recover, but obviously tubing is just that good! We had a wicked time stopping at each bar slowly getting pissed on whisky buckets, chatting to everyone and dancing. Everyone is so chilled out here and couldn't be friendlier. After a few buckets, I finally braved one of the many rope swings over the ... read more
Got a minibus today to Vang Vieng for our tubing experience. Wasn't a great journey, in the back with my knees in my chin through windy mountainous roads. The fantastic scenery made up for it though. Chatted with a cool bloke sat next to me though - John from Derby. Got to Vang Vieng 6 hours later. Got a tuk-tuk into town with the rest of the minibus crew and when we stopped, somehow in the confusion, Adam's little bag got left on the tuk-tuk's roof! Luckily after some chasing around he managed to find his bag back at the bus station. But the tuk-tuk drivers made him buy them each a beer before he could have it! Meanwhile I stayed in town mindingthe bags while our new mate John ran around the place trying to ... read more
Looked round town today. Had an English brekky to start the day off but had Laos tea (still wanted to be a bit authentic). Looked round the palace and some temples today. Not as impressive as some of the ones in Thailand but still beautiful and rather fitting to the somewhat quaintness of the town. We walked up the 300 steps to the temple in the centre of the town and it was a fantastic view of the whole town. Well worth the effort! While up there a Laos girl passed us and put her arm next to mine to compare my pale skin to hers, then she walked off giggling to her mate. I'm not quite sure if that makes me a victim of some kind of racial abuse?!?! Anyway, saw Tim and Debs from ... read more