Rhonda and Kathy, the Australians that bailed us out on the Vietnam/Cambodia border had recommended a pretty special trip that departed from town each Sunday and we'd decided to stay on in Phnom Penh for most of the day to make sure we could get a spot on the minibus. A local expat group called CHOICE took tourists put to one of three poor villages to do activities with the local kids in return for a donation. We were looking forward to this day from the first time we heard about it. I scoffed my breakfast down, the bacon sandwich and omelette were no match for me after a dinnerless evening. We then packed our gear, separating our souvenirs from our clothes, so that we could leave one bag at reception for collection the night before ... read more

Breakfast at the hotel was awful and Jo had to go to the counter to ask for our change that seemed to have been forgotten about. We were loaded onto another wooden tourist boat and went less than a kilometre before we stopped at a tin house, one of the hundreds that was floating alongside the banks of the Mekong. Most of the houses were fish farms and our guide lifted a chunk out of what was the owners front porch to reveal the sea bass living underneath. The next stop was Cham Village, an interesting area that is inhabited by a majority muslim population. We walked for a kilometre or so around a block where kids waved from their front porches and the adults went about whatever it was that the adults in Cham Village ... read more

Son, our potential Easy Rider tour guide was due to collect us at 0730 so we were up early on the off chance he showed up. We packed, checked out and I went out to make sure our motorbike hadn’t disappeared overnight. It was still sitting where we left it and furthermore still had the 3/4 of a tank of gas that we’d left the night before. The deal with motorbike rentals in Vietnam seems to be that your bike is collected and drained of petrol overnight necessitating a refill each morning. At 0730 on the dot Son showed up with a good helmet for me. It came complete with a clear, full face visor… something of a luxury. Jo jumped on board Son’s bike and I followed behind. Around 5kms out of Da Lat City ... read more

If it all went well, we were in for a long day indeed. We still had two dives – deep water and underwater photography – to complete to get our Advanced Diving Certificates. We then had to be on a bus to Dalat by 1400. The boat usually arrived back at the dock in Nha Trang somewhere between 1230 and 1330 and there were still another five or six kilometres to get to the bus station. It was going to be tight but the reward of effectively gaining half a day was worth the risk. Breakfast was bacon sandwiches from the hotel buffet and I used the time to answer the theory questions we needed to have completed prior to our two dives. The deep water dive had me worried – I’m far from a natural ... read more

Anticipation of the diving ensured we were well awake by the time our alarm clock was due to go off at 0630. Breakfast was a damn good spread. A buffet of mixed Western and Vietnamese cuisine with plenty of good coffee. Jo had scrambled eggs with bacon and potatoes whilst I had a really good mushroom, bacon and tomato omelette. We arrived at Sailing Club Divers at 0745 and were on the bus with two danish girls and an american by 0800. The port was only a ten minute drive away so we were on the boat and being introduced to our Welsh dive master soon after. Hon Mun Island was a 45 minute boat trip away on a wooden, two deck vessel that would comfortably have held 30 divers so we were stoked to have ... read more