We left Hue for the four hour drive over the Hai Van pass to Hoi An. I was still feeling tired and tight chested and was hoping the antibiotics would make me feel better soon. Our driver spoke very good English and Jerry enjoyed talking to him as we left Hue. Halfway to Hoi An we stopped at one of two large inland lagoons. One was used for pearl farming, an enterprise originally established by the Japanese, and now run solely by Vietnamese families growing cultured pearls for export to Japan. The other large lagoon was used for shrimp farming. The road was lined with eucalyptus tree plantations, a present after the war from the Australian Government, and today there are thriving home based small stills in the area producing eucalyptus oil and associated products. The ... read more

We left Hanoi for the four hour drive to Mai Chau on a small tourist bus, US$18 a seat, and it was not the most comfortable trip as the seats were small, made for tiny Asian frames. And they are small people. Even in today's modern world with different eating habits and more money they all are lovely and slim. The rest of the passengers were young backpackers on a two day tour to the region - as usual they slept all the way or fiddled with their phones. Not that there was a lot to see for the first couple of hours as we were just driving along the main highway. The Mai Chau valley is 135 klms from Hanoi and is renowned for its' stilt houses and rice fields. The small town of Mai ... read more

We took a taxi to the southern bus station in Kuala Lumpur where we were to catch a bus for the two hour trip to Melaka (or Malacca - both versions seem to be in use). We had visited the city over ten years previously and were expecting to see many changes. Certainly the bus station in KL was very different - a massive gleaming building which was a complete contrast to the old run down central station. It was a boring trip as the scenery was unspectacular and we were pleased to arrive in Melaka which had certainly grown though the old town appeared to have retained much of it's charm. The bus terminal was certainly very different - last time we were there the bus depot was a shack on a muddy block of ... read more

A comfortable flight, an efficient entry through Changi Airport in Singapore and a taxi took us to the Ibis on Bencoolen Hotel. We've stayed there before on previous trips and it felt a little like coming home. We were heading into our final week of this trip - the previous eight weeks seemed to have gone by very quickly! We ordered room service and decided to leave any more sightseeing until next day. It was very hot and humid next morning when we left the hotel. We started the day with a walk through the nearby streets of Little India. It was great to be surrounded by the colours of India again. The shop houses were painted in bright colours and the streets were still strung with banners celebrating Deepavali (the Hindu festival of lights which ... read more

Quanzhou railway station was on the outskirts of the city and was extremely large and modern. Railway and intercity bus terminals in China have all been taken from the centre of the cities to the outskirts and housed in smart glossy terminals resembling airports. Some are very large.... It only took an hour and half to reach Longyan, where we had to catch a bus onward to the tulou region. The tulou (which means earth) houses were built by the Hakka people (one of the Chinese ethnic groups) and are made of rammed earth and glutinous rice, reinforced with bamboo and wood chips. The structures were large enough to house clans (a hundred or so families) and were often built in circular form with an open area in the centre. With only one entrance (with a ... read more