On our journey to Siam Reap we stopped off in a small rural village for a nights home stay visit. Prior to this we visited an old temple nearby. It was built around six hundred years ago and had remained sleeping there until recently. There were several small temples and gates some of which had fallen into disrepair but some were still complete. After this we arrived at the home stay, which was in a small rural village where the main industry is rice. The families get up at around 5am every day to carry out daily chores before going to work in the rice fields. Some Of the elderly villagers till work in the fields. Our host showed us to our room which was the whole of the upstairs of their house. There were twelve ... read more

Today we visited the Chu Chi tunnels just outside Saigon. We left our hotel at around 8am and spent about an hour and a half in a Saigon rush hour traffic jam. Eventually we got out of the city on to a road where the traffic actually moved, and most of the time it moved in one direction which is unusual for this part of the world. Most of the time almost anything goes. The first stop was a small farm where they farmed a few acres of rubber plant trees, raised a few pigs and chickens. We were greeted first of all by Moma pig and thirteen six day old piglets, they were just sooo cute. After cooing over the piglets we were taught how to make rice paper. First the rice is boiled and ... read more

Last night at around 6pm we boarded the train from Hanoi to Hue, the journey took about fifteen and a half hours. The train was not as comfortable as the train we caught in Thailand however it was acceptable and despite a few disturbances we had a fairly good nights sleep. On arrival in Hue we checked into our hotel and had a late breakfast. After this we visited the citadel, which consisted of quite a few ancient buildings surrounded by a moat, some of the buildings contained some antiquities from when the last emporer reigned. Hue was the old capital of Vietnam but because of its situation the new capital became Hanoi as it was further north. Hue lies on the banks of the Perfume River so called because of the frangipani trees which used ... read more

Today we travelled from Vang Vieng to Vientiane the new capital of Laos, most of the morning was spent on the minibus. The scenery not quite as spectacular as the previous journey to Vang Vieng. On arrival in Vientiane we checked into our hotel and then went to the COPE centre which is supported by Intrepid (the tour company). The centre supports victims of bomb accidents, yes after more than forty years since the Vietnamese war people are still being injured and killed by unexplored bombs in Laos. There were thousands and thousands of cluster bombs dropped and there is a team working today to try and remove them from villages some are buried under the ground and younger people today do not realise they are there and may build houses above them. The task of ... read more

Today I threw all caution to the wind and went elephant trekking. Before going on the activity we checked with our guide who assured us that the elephants were well looked after and hadn't been taken from the wild for purely tourist activities. when we arrived the elephants were tucking in to breakfast of sugar cane which they obviously enjoyed. After this we got into the seats for two people and off we went. It was fine until we started going down a steep slope when it became a little wobbly. After this we proceeded into the river where the elephants drank. We carried on up the river for a while at which point the river was quite deep and the water was up to the top of the elephants legs. Once more a rather bumpy ... read more