Day 27 – Snakes on a mini bus

So in my last post I was waffling about cultural things we'd observed, as our list of activities had ground to a halt again while the never ending rain fell from the sky. We were getting a little miffed at our lack of progress northward, and so with a little help from out extremely helpful and friendly hotel owner (the Czech speaking one) we found a solution. While driving around the country we had observed buses with bikes stacked on top, and decided this was the solution we were looking for. Apparently it's not 100% legal, and our friend advised us of a company that does this the legal way – our understanding by his description was there was some storage area in the back of a large coach they drove them into. This seemed like a good idea, as we would stay dry, and the distance we needed to cover was around 300km - more than we cared to do in a day, especially if it was raining.

Our very friendly and helpful man who owned the hotel we stayed in for 4 days, and spoke fluent Czech!


The bus left at 6 the next morning, so we got up really early, checked out, and went to the bus depot. There a minibus rolled up, and it dawned on us that we'd actually booed what we'd seen so many times on the road already. These guys hooked a rope around the front wheel, and using a small ladder, and the open windows as the bus for steps, lynched our bikes onto the roof one by one in 3 simple manoeuvres. They laid them down on top next to each other, and tied them securely. Our bags and ourselves inside. The bus stank of petrol, as we'd filled up previously, and the bike being on it's side meant three quarters of the fuel just pissed out onto the roof.

Getting the bikes on & off the mini bus-loads of fun ;)


Inside the bus the floor and back area was coated in boxes of all shapes and sizes – transporting some unknown cargo from one destination to the other. We assumed by the lack of space remaining that perhaps we had the bus to ourselves, and we could spread out a little and catch some zzz's en-route. How wrong we were! One guy who winched our bike on board spent most of the rest of the trip hanging out the open door. As we started to leave the city, we drove past the main bus depot, where by means of simply shouting at everyone on the road and street he seemed to acquire more fares to take to the buses final destination (or somewhere en-route) – Danang. He picked up girls on the back of a bikes – who were getting a lift from a friend, carrying large bags, whom he convinced the bus was a better option. Guys walking to the (conventional) bus stop with bags, likely going home for the weekend after being at Uni all week - he jumped on and practically dragged onto the bus. People standing on corners, sitting in cafés, all got convinced by this young guy to get on, and everyone bartered for their price before they boarded – it was hilarious. Further along route we stopped at places they'd obviously prearranged to stop and collect people. Another guy got on with a bike – the bus drivers starts accelerating to 60kph as the other chaps is still on the roof securing the bike, as he then clambers down the side and swings into the bus as we overtake tens of bikes at breakneck speeds.

In about an hour – every spare inch of space was used up, either with bodies, boxes or luggage. We all had to seats still as our bodies didn't really fit in the ridiculously small seats, and there were boxes under our feet – with our bags as well, there just wasn't room. People got on-board with all sorts of things; electronic equipment, artwork, overnight bags, food. One woman even got on with a giant tank filled with liquid which got plonked in front of Lukas. Upon closer inspection there seemed to be something moving side. It as actually a snake pickling tank – a few hundred small snakes stuffed in a tank filled with soy sauce where they are left to pickle-to-death, they are then eaten. Half were clearly dead already, the rest struggling for life. It was pretty grim. The girls sat next to Lukas got splashed by the yuky fluid they were in, the bus guy gave her a paper napkin,... thanks! LOL. One poor girl sat a few seats away from us was really not having a good time, and must have chucked up at least 20 times into tiny black plastic bags which she just chucked from the moving buses window. When we stopped at a half-way house for a toilet & drink break, local dogs were seen carrying these bags around, they must take them to a quiet place to eat the contents – filthy animals :) By this point we were sharing a 20 year-old nicotine-interior-stained, petrol and damp smelling mini bus with 14 random people, one of whom was constantly vomiting, all their and our luggage, about half a tonne of cargo, and a tank full of half-dead/half-alive pickled serpents, with four motorbikes and large basket on the roof. It really was quite and experience. The funniest thing was, that day we'd only passed through a few small showers – it had remained relatively dry, and was actually quite a pleasant day by the end of the journey – we could probably have simply driven ourselves. But considering we had no realistic idea of the weather forecast (internet and tv don't have very accurate data for this area of the world), and it would have been the longest journey endured yet, along the business stretch of motorway we would have encountered to date – we were actually kind of glad we took the bus.

The bus dropped us 10km from our destination – Hoi An (30 km south of Danang). With a little help from us to get our bikes back down, we strapped our bikes back on, and continued the remaining distance on our own steam.

Updated visual-journey progress - the journey from Quy Nho'n to Hoi An

Hoi An is an interesting place. It's very touristy, perhaps more so than anywhere we have been so far here. It's meant to be one of the earliest ports in the region, benefiting from a safe harbour that leads 5km up a river to the town centre. There were many types of cultures that used it as a trading post from all over the S.E. Asia region – mostly Chinese ad Japanese, and these influences are evident in the architecture of this interesting little place. The entire place floods in rainy season – the water level rises up to 3 metres at times - and becomes like Venice – people forced to live on the first floors and use boats,or retreat to higher ground. All the building walls are damp and mossy, they must have to redecorate every year! Walking around the narrow streets and lanes, it's east to imagine how this town may have looked 150 years ago, and they have made use of every ounce of that heritage to make this THE tourist destination of central Vietnam. What was the old trading town in the centre is now entirely gift shops, bars, restaurants, and sites of touristic interest. It's very picturesque, but the town itself too touristy for our blood.

What this place does have is a lot of things to do in the immediate area surrounding the city, so it makes a good base. Also the food here is the best we have experienced anywhere in Vietnam – it really is rather good, so a great place to spend our evenings and gorge ourselves on large set-meal options :)

We arrived for lunch, found a hotel an filled up no our regular lunch time meal of Pho Bo (beef noodle soup). We then set about exploring the town centre and getting those touristy things done, so we could tick them off and not wonder by, curious that we might have missed something we might have enjoyed. Turns out it wasn't hat great, but you never can tell, and we did learn a little about the town's history. Nothing other than the town itself photo worthy though.

How most of the town looks


The following morning we were up early, eager to beat the tourists to the prime spots in the region. We visited an ancient temple site, filed with ruins (and tourists even at the early hours), which was interesting. Not exactly well preserved, and lovingly taken care of, but still fascinating to experience. We explored marble mountain outcrops further north, which are coated in religious temples, pagodas, with gigantic hidden caves containing Buddha's carved out of the natural rock – entirely surrounded by a town whose sole industry seemed to be carving giant chunks of marble into large tacky statues and ornaments, that only the insanely rich (to own enough land/big enough room to house them) or tasteless would buy. We briefly explored a peninsula in the north end of the regions largest city Danang, that contained a nature reserve, where along the coast we witnessed masses of luxury resorts being constructed, and a 120m tall religious statue – presumably Danag's version of the Statue of liberty – which we could imagine being such a different place in 10 years time. They must be pepping the city to become Vietnam's newest luxury tourist destination, and everyone seems to be getting in on the act. A nice drive back, and another splendid meal to fill our stomachs.

The villagers crafting statues from giant chunks of marble


Today we slept in with monster hangovers having bought some cheap booze, and drinking it sat on the pavement opposite our hotel watching the world go by and putting it to right. After which we had ourselves booked into do a Vietnamese cookery lesson. It really was fun! We first went to the market where the girl (Han?) showed us where the locals buy their food,and also the restaurants in the area. This was an experience in itself. Markets here are very hectic, and packed with a maze of narrow passages between stalls,down which hundreds of people walk as well as cycle, and motorbikes slowly navigate-it's ridiculous, they really will drive a bike anywhere in this country. It was good to see how the markets operate, and to be shown how Vietnamese identify good fresh veg, example; Pak Choi cabbage – if it looks like insects have been eating the leaves a little – that's good, as it's tasty, and not covered in insecticides (which I believe are used quite heavily over here). If we saw it had been eaten we'd probably instantly discount it. They sold every type of food there-meat, veg, seafood, and we went around and saw it all, bought what we needed, and back to the restaurant to start our preparation.

We had chosen to cook;
1. Our daily favourite, Pho Bo (Beef noodle soup)
2. Fish with chilli & lemongrass
3. Chicken hotpot

All quite traditional Vietnamese dishes. And all very tasty. We prepared our marinades for the meats, prepared the veg and cooked one dish at a time, pausing to eat once we'd finished one. We were writing the recipes down each step of the way and have made a separate recipe blog post for anyone interested in the ingredient and method for themselves. I'll definitely be visiting more Chinese supermarkets (or Vietnamese if they exist in London) when I return and sure I'll subject at least some of you to some of newly learnt culinary delights ;)

Cooking class fun!


Off for our last lovely dinner in this town tonight, then onwards again tomorrow, further north to a place called Hue. It's only 100km, so a short trip, and time to look around before heading north again.

More pictures buy Lukas.

Day 27 – Recipe cooking class

Recipe 1: Pho Bo (Beef noodle soup)

For 3 persons

Ingredients

150g Beef
3 teaspoons vegetable stock powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon chilli paste
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 cloves of garlic
1 litre of boiling water
150g dried rice noodles
150g bean sprouts
1 tablespoon dried coriander
2 tablespoons onion flakes
Pinch of black ground pepper

Method

1. Marinate the beef. To create marinade add into a bowl; half the vegetable stock powder, half of the sugar, all of the sesame oil, and the chilli paste. Mix together and add the Beef (shredded). Stir well and leave for at least 30mins.
2. Distribute bean sprouts in bottom of serving bowls
.3. Soften rice noodles in boiling water for 10seconds, remove, strain, and add to bowls.
4. Crush the garlic and add to wok/frying pan on medium-high heat for 10 seconds. Add the marinated beef and cook for about 1 minute until browned. Add to bowls.
5. In same pan, add the boiling water (to collect flavours), add the rest of the vegetable stock, sugar, dried coriander, and bring to the boil. Taste and season to your liking.
6. Add liquid to the bowl and garnish with onion flakes. Add any chopped fresh herbs you wish as additional garnish.
7. Serve! Mmmmmmm.

Recipe 2: Fish with chilli & lemon grass

For 3 persons

Ingredients

300g Fish, filleted & chopped into bite-sized pieces
3 stems of lemon grass
3 gloves of garlic
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 ½ teaspoons of vegetable stock
1 ½ teaspoons of sugar
1 ½ teaspoons sesame oil
1 ½ teaspoons chilli paste
2 tablespoons water

Method

1. Create marinade for fish. Mix in a bowl; the vegetable stock,sugar, sesame oil &B chilli paste. Add the fish and leave to marinade for at least 30mins.
2. Finely chop the lemon grass, and smash the garlic. Blend together (in blender) to form a paste.
3. Add this paste into a wok/frying pan with the oyster sauce and vegetable oil. Fry together for 30seconds.
4. Add the marinated fish and 1 tablespoon of water, mix together and fry for another 30 seconds-1minute, until the fish is cooked.
5. Serve with steamed rice.

Recipe 3: Chicken hotpot

For 3 persons

Ingredients

300g cubed chicken breasts
3 teaspoons vegetable stock powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon chilli paste
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons fish sauce
½ teaspoon pepper
1 litre boiling water
1 carrot
100g pak choi cabbage
3 Chinese cabbage leaves
½ onion
½ aubergine
1 stem lemon grass

Method

1. Create the marinade for the chicken. Mix into a bowl; Half the vegetable stock powder, sugar, sesame oil, & chilli paste. Add the chicken, stir well and leave for at least 30mins.
2. Chop all the veg into bite-sized pieces. Chop the lemon grass stems in half (to be added only for flavour). Leave the aubergine in a bowl of cold water to soak for at least 10minutes to soften.
3. Cook the chicken in the vegetable oil for 2minutes in frying pan.
4. Add the boiling water to a large pan.
5. Add the remainder of the vegetable stock powder to the pan, along with the aubergine. Cook for 1 minute.
6. Add the remainder of the veg, the fish sauce and the chicken into the pan.
7. Stir & leave on a low heat for a few minutes.
8. Serve in small bowls, keeping the remainder of the stew on the heat, returning for more helpings.

Lovely jubbly!

Day 23 – Cultural pondering

Okay, so it started raining again and our plans to keep moving have been binned for now. We just couldn't face getting soaked to the bone – it was just such an unpleasant experience the last two times we couldn't face it again. So following breakfast and a few shots of local spirits with our friendly Czech speaking hotel host, we're back in our hotel room watching some tv and chilling out. I'm leaching off the hotel opposites WiFi signal and attempting my first iPod typed blog entry in an iPhone designed word processor ;) Geek! We've been out and bought junk food and stacks of booze from the supermarket for a night-in at the hotel- yee ha! :)

Thought I'd take the opportunity to blog about some cultural observations we have noted in our time in Vietnam so far, rather than ranting on about our activities as usual (seeing as the rain has halted any further activities for the meantime). No pictures in this one ;)

Vietnam is still a communist country. The American war in the 70's obviously didn't succeed in bringing about a complete democratic switch over. But what it did do is set the wheels in motion for a much slower process that has undoubtedly helped Vietnam move forwards as a nation towards a more successful society. The economy has obviously been set free, making free trade and the concept of personal wealth possible, but people still have limited human rights; basic things that you and I take for granted such as freedom of speech and the ability to elect a ruling political party. These changes are recent, and actually opposed by elements of society such as the older generations who lived most of their lives under a harsher communist rule. The younger generation (which is much more plentiful due to increased quality of life and large numbers of the older generations loosing their lives in the war) are much more aware of the benefits of democracy and there seems to be an air of democracy-envy spread by those who travelled to places like Europe to study, returning home with tales of a different way of life. Consequently the younger generation seem transfixed on material possessions that seem to reflect our cultures through the media. Owning the newest motorbike, and mobile phones take much higher priority over what we might consider higher priorities such as basic living conditions - a well built house that won't fall down, a clean and sanitary cooking environment and washing facilities. We have seen shanty town style accommodation made from driftwood and rusted corrugated iron panels on plot of sloping mud, probably less than 10m², that houses an entire family of maybe 3 generations, has a satellite dish on the outside and a home karaoke system inside (a massive fad here) you can hear bellowing out the open door. They nearly always can't sing for toffee- strangling a cat doesn't quite cut it :)

Such a contrast seems strange to us and almost backward at first glance. But are simply a direct result of rapid cultural and economic change; a developing country existing in the same world as our developed nations trying to get itself to our level of development as fast as possible. A process that took us many hundreds of years (being among the early movers), they are now trying to achieve in 50, as indeed you would having the benefit of hindsight as to all developed nations processes, successes and failures. Being here you can imagine the level of change that might take place over the next 10-20 years alone, more than some people in already developed nation might see in an entire lifetime. The seeds of changes are in place, and the communist rule likely has a shelf-life soon to expire.

As a tourist/traveller here you experience this directly through your accommodation where often the quality of the rooms is pretty poor (by western standards), but you still have a brand new tv with cable and quite often air conditioning too. But the beds are naff and the bathroom grim. As a hotel owner here you or I would consider spending money on the basic amenities before adding what we would consider luxury items.

Differences in culture also become very apparent in regards to food too. Cutlery as we know it is rare here, as the cultures in this part of the world obviously use chopsticks (that I'm happy to report we've become pretty skilled at using). Chop sticks as eating utensils far out date's any form of cutlery, obviously thousands of years ago we mostly used knives (that were also used for hunting), and bread to eat.

I read; “Chopsticks were strongly advocated by the great Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC). He reasoned that, as a matter of advancement in civilization, instruments used for killing must be banned from the dining table. Therefore, knives cannot be permitted, and that is why Chinese food is always chopped into bite size before it reaches the table.”

Eating with your fingers is apparently impolite, but because of the food – sometimes unavoidable. Like yesterday I ordered some prawns, but they don't come peeled here (I'm talking about the small sized ones you get in UK, not the giant ones that are almost fun to dissect manually), they actually eat the shell, head, tail, legs – everything. I tried it, but just couldn't get past the texture, so set about peeling them all...which took ages. And the staff just stare at you eating (especially pulling apart the small prawns – I got into a right 2&8), like we're doing things in the wrong order, or just differently, so they find it fascinating. But the staring can be a little off-putting.

My favourite food (chicken) is awful here. I'm so disappointed :( The poor birds just don't have any meat on them. You get what we're used to in a leg, in a whole damn bird here. And the meat isn't removed from the carcass, instead the whole bird is cleavered into small pieces, meaning you have to spend ages getting the meat from the tiny pieces of bone... It can be hard work sometimes! Food in general is actually a lot worse than I thought it would be. Quality of ingredients is pretty low, and the combinations unimaginative. When they do spicy here – it's really spicy – have had my head blown off a few times :) They eat a lot of things even we're not adventurous enough to try (excluding the dog we accidentally ate). But we get by. And sometimes you do come across something really tasty. The only thing I really miss is the variation in diet I'd become accustomed to back home – a little something from all cultures, and the freshness and quality of ingredients we just pick off the shelf in a supermarket, surprisingly isn't as good here – wilting, less flavoursome, badly nurtured. But it's changing every time we move, there are subtle regional differences, and when we cross borders we're expecting some dramatic changes, not necessarily for the better (according to what we've read), but we shall see...More adventure!

Enough ranting about cultural differences for one day. It's fascinating to see these variations, and always a good experience, and just as much to talk about why the differences exist as it is realise they are there. We're enjoying every step of the way, and looking froward to more change and fascinating sights along the way. Hopefully the rain will stop tomorrow and we can get back on the road. If not I'll likely come back with more observations, to kill some time... Hope everyone back home is tickety boo.

Day 22 - Return of the sunshine

Okay, so the last I wrote we were experiencing the end of thunder storm that gave us boring weather and little to do in Nha Trang. The following day we'd just about had enough and booked ourselves on a day tour to see some islands, hoping for some sun and figuring we'd see something even if it wasn't that great (is was slowly improving throughout the previous day). We were expecting a civilised affair touring some islands with some beach time. What we got was pretty different. And the night before we'd (well, master barterer Peter) bought a bottle of Jonnie Walker which we polished off in our hotel room in an attempt to relieve the boredom onset by the weather.

Turns out these day tours are more kind of 18-30's style booze boats that try to deliver a non-stop party atmosphere. And to be fair, they delivered! We were picked up fairly early (heads still full of whisky), and driven to the dock where we boarded the boat - a really mixed bag of tourists from all over the world were on-board with us. On goes the mic, and the chap who picked us up introduces himself as the 'funky monkey'. Seems the hull is full of booze, and most of the people joining us on the day were young travellers too. We were pretty excited having been sat on our asses for a few days, either wet or damp. By this point the skies had cleared, and the hot hot sun was beating down - the glorious weather had returned, and just in the nick of time! They took us to an island a few miles off the coast, and we all just jumped into the ocean with masks & snorkels. By this point we'd had a few beers already. Not much to see down there, but it was clean, clear, and bright blue.

An island we stopped off at to swim.


The day went on like this, stopping from place to place. More beer, more islands, more beaches. They even turned the bench seats into a large table and gave us all a slap-up meal. Then it really started to get surreal. They whipped out some knackered old instruments (electric guitar, and a drum-kit made from kitchen pots-amazing how good it sounded!), and played some classic rock songs,mixed with some more traditional Vietnamese songs. It was hilarious, and we finished with some karaoke, singing 'Frere Jacques' in the language of every nationality on the boat. I did the British version. No idea what the words are.

Crazy band on the boat – funky monkey & his crew.



After all this excitement, they opened the floating-bar (a kind of large floating ring), with our drummer as the barman, dishing out free cocktails, pouring jugs of the stuff down the neck of anyone who dared go close. It really was just what we needed (the day, not the cocktails), and we met some nice people, including some chaps from Austria and Denmark, who had a following of two lovely German girls, three sisters from Oz, and blond bird from Croydon (who'd of thought). We also met a nice group of Vietnamese girls, a lady from China, and and interesting French-Japanese couple. All in all it was a good day, and helped make up for the previous days of shitty weather.

Getting tanked up at the floating bar.


After our day of fun we'd decided we had to start moving again, and continue our journey north. So after a lie-in to sleep of the amount of booze consumed, we were back on the road, this time with good weather overhead. Heading north along the coast started off a bit dangerous - there was a lot of traffic and the wind was nearly knocking us on our asses, caused mostly by the geography of open coast and high mountains. Our destination was 240km away, so we'd conceded that we weren't likely to make it all the way and would stop somewhere en-route. After a few hours, the roads started to clear up, and we could start to enjoy the scenery. And boy what scenery. These roads really are a bikers paradise; massive mountain ranges covered in rain-forest, snaking roads around prominent rock formations, steep hills into sloping valleys, rivers, coast. It was magical, and if the place we'd stopped halfway was half decent and cheap, we'd of had time to document it all, but it wasn't, and we decided to press on to Quy Nho'n, meaning we had to make it there before nightfall. We arrive and found a nice little hotel on the coast (one of the nicest rooms so far).

Updated visual-journey progress - the scenic mountain route we drove.

Bizarrely, it turns out the owner speaks fluent Czech! The guy had studied and lived in Prague for 5 years, and had not spoken the language in some years, and reveals in chatting with Peter and Lukas. Apparently he's very good. Even more bizarre – there's a Czech restaurant here that serves Budvar, and Goulash. The boys were most amused :)

Proud as punch! A touch of home for the boys from Prague, here in Vietnam.


Quy Nho'n is strange city. It's quite large, but not in any of our (three different) guide books. It's a very Vietnamese city, that is quite dominated by the university here. There not used to seeing many tourist, especially Europeans, and the town certainly isn't 'designed' for us. The place we ate lunch today was another finger pointing exercise, and we're pretty sure we all accidentally ordered and ate dog meat :S We didn't recognise the word, but it had tiny photos (of the final dish, not a pouty-eyed pup), and it looked good, so we all went for variants of the same thing (having really struggled with the first few choices they didn't seem to have). It tasted a bit like pork, but definitely wasn't (had loads of skin still on the meat – packed with dark hair follicles). It was okay I guess – a little tough, and the meat wasn't very plentiful – every piece was still attached to skin (sorry vegi's out there). They did look at us a little weird when we ordered it, but we were having a mare ordering so just went with it... Now we know the word to avoid.

Sine being here we're been touring around, venturing into tiny farming towns, and sleeping fishing villages, where we always seem to be like celebrities. But the people are always friendly, and the scenery to die for. The beaches are nice here too; the sea is a little rough, but a refreshing plunge to cool down in the midday heat is a regular occurrence. A couple of beers in hammocks later, and one ancient temple, we're back off to the Czech restaurant for dinner, in an attempt not too consume more canine.

The ancient (and sadly unprotected, so pretty wrecked) temple we visited today.


Tomorrow we're likely to hit the road again, this time heading in-land again to take the Ho Chi Minh trail that will continue to take us north, as the section of coast ahead apparently has little to offer.

TTFN.

More pictures by Lukas

Day 18 – the big-chill

Okay, so we had to check out of that gross hotel, it was good for one night, as 4 hours driving in the pelting rain was just too much... We ate some dodgy dinner, and crashed for the night. Alarm rings at 7, and we decided we must press on regardless. So we hopped back into our soaking wet clothes from the day before, mounted our bikes and braved the never ending rain once again. We had about 80Km left to cover and it was not pleasant at all. Driving in a tropical thunderstorm, with little or no protection from the elements is the worst thing have had to do so far, and I'd rather not repeat it. But we had to reach our destination. The roads were filled with large trucks driving like nutters, and we passed numerous more than had tipped over at the side of the road. The rain was just never ending, actually getting heavier as we descended from the highlands down snaking mountain paths and approached the coast. It was painful. Our faces were red from the pins & needless sensation of the rain pummelling our faces. Eventually we arrived in Nha Trang, and after some more getting lost and head-scratching as to the direction of the beach and hotels, 3.5 hours since we departed that morning, we found a hotel and got off those damn bikes. SOAKED TO THE BONE! Literally not a single square centimetre of our bodies was dry, I'd gone completely wrinkly – like sitting in a bath for that amount of time, and I had half a pint of water in each boot. We checked in, clothes off, hot shower! Arghhhhhhhhh... We slipped into some dry clothes, handed over our laundry, got some food, necked some booze and snoozed for the afternoon.

A view from the (currently) stormy beach


This place is pretty cool. It's THE tourist destination to go to in Vietnam. Great beaches, loads of hotels, & Italian restaurants as far as the eye can see ;). People on every street corner trying to sell you something, or entice you into a restaurant - it's like being on holiday in some European destination. A surprisingly pleasant contrast to rest of our experiences so far. It would be great if it weren't for the weather. The storm has mostly passed, but it's been overcast and showery ever since, more like what you're experiencing back in the UK I guess, a far flung memory from the searing heat we'd experienced to date... So day 1 here (afternoon), we mostly crashed, recovering from our horrible journey. Watched a lot of TV in bed (American B-movies seem to be a recurring theme here), and read some... We really slept in this morning, and didn't get up for breakfast/brunch/lunch till close to midday :S.

We decided we had to go out, despite still being a little grim, and following some home-comfort food (I had a full-English, the lads had burgers - tacky, but good to eat it while it's available; rice & noodles does get tiring), we ventured by foot to see the local pagoda and giant Budah statue, then hit the local markets. Since we came here to hop online again, and then out for food and a few bars.

Budah inside the pagoda, many hands make light work


Big concrete Budah outside


Tomorrow we hope to take a boat tour and see some of the islands we can see from our balcony. But without the good weather, the beaches on the islands (the main reason to go) have little appeal. Without the good weather this place has little to offer, but if the sun shines there's a lot to see and do, so we're happy to relax a little until the weather improves. We like it here, and there are elements of the culture that give us a little tastes of home, that we find comforting while sitting out the rain. Better here than stranded in the middle of nowhere where options would be far more limited.

Hopefully next time we'll have something more interesting to write about.

Day 16 – Singing in the rain

More exciting blog from yesterday. Am just writing this one to kill some time... :/

So we were at our lovely resort on the Lake. Peter & I hired an Ethnic minority tribe boat, hollowed out from a tree, and paddled around the lake for an hour, while Lukas lost track of time in an Internet café, which was nice. And then we met this group of Germans who were staying the night. They'd asked the resort to do the full-show for them, which we watched with them - a large fire, some history of the ethnic tribes, dancing, beating of drums, that kind of thing. Was quite entertaining if not a little forced. At the end the dancing girls grabbed us and showed us the steps to their dance. The German folks seemed nice. They were visiting a German friend who lives here, and is from Nah Trang - our next destination - so we might meet up with them again there...

We continued to drink throughout the evening, and it seems one of the girls who worked there (and was dancing that evening) took a shine to me. When I went to get some more beers, her friend serving me tried expressing her friends crush, which came out as, “She [point] loves you!”. Flattered of course I waved, smiled, took my beers and went back. Later we got pretty drunk, and decided to make a go for it with these attractive girls, but when it came to the part of flirting where conversation starts, communication wasn't possible, as they spoke no English. Anyway we crashed out, and prepared the next morning to set off again on our journey to Nha Trang back on the coast.

After we'd been to breakfast, we returned to the room to finish packing, and discovered a love letter on my pillow. The sweet thing has written me a note:
Hi Jon. I love you very much [insert self manga-style portrait] xxx. The lovely girl!!! [insert Vietnamese name]. Not really knowing what to do, after packing she found me, and a talked at her for a minute (don't think she could understand a word I was saying), and pecked her on the cheek. She was pretty shy, but appreciative (I think/hope).She was an attractive little thing, but very young (well maybe 18). The boys were pretty jealous ;)

So with my love affair behind us, we hit the road and headed east to the coast.

About 50km down the road, the weather turned, and it actually started to rain. It got heavier, and windier, until it got so unpleasant we had to stop for a while, in this Internet café where I'm writing now. Hopefully we can make it all the way today ()we're just over halfway I think), but if not, we'll be stopping somewhere en-route overnight until this weather improves. It's pretty unusual for it to rain here this time of year, and it does make us grind to a halt, so I hope it doesn't last – it's supposed to clear tomorrow or the day after... Looking outside now it's calmed down a a bit at least.

Updated visual-journey progress - to our final destination that I hope we reach today.

I hear it's raining in the UK - flooding part of the country, so this is our comeuppance for missing it I guess, and bragging of our soaring temperatures :) Next time I blog I hope we'll be back on the beach sunning ourselves, and snorkelling in the crystal clear waters...

3 hours later....

Well, we went back on the road, and the weather was actually worse if anything. It was raining harder, and the wind was just as strong. It really was pretty damn unpleasant, to the point of almost going right back around the scale and being fun again... Almost...

Weather system we're facing – doesn't look good, might last for days :(


We decided that we had to stop, and at the next opportunity we'd stop in a hotel and rest for the afternoon – waiting our the rain, and hoping it would stop overnight so we can continue tomorrow.
About 90mins down the road we came across a small town and after asking around found a hotel (although it had no sign). It's a little grim to say the least, but it's a bed, and if we drink enough we'll forget the state of the place and sleep through till what will hopefully be a dry morning. Although looking at the forecasts online, this might last till Sunday – we're in a tropical depression – so we might just have to put our wet clothes back on, drive there slowly, and get the books out... :-/

Not much to do here, so hoped back online to kill some time, find somewhere to eat and drink, and hopefully we'll be back on the move again tomorrow. Touch wood.

Sign of our boredom, and the state of our lovely abode for the night


More of me without many clothes on (for the ladies), saying good morning to the young elephant outside our cottage at the lovely resort we just left and are longing for again right now...

Day 15 - The long & winding road

Hello everyone. Well it's been an eventful week!

New visual-journey progress update

Monastery mentioned in previous blog entry


Last I wrote, we were still in Dalat, and we'd booked an 'Easy rider' dude to take,us on some tours around the local area. The lunch we'd had the previous day was a very local café- it tasted okay, but we all had the shits the following day... bad! But it's wasn't the first time for some of us so far, but you expect these things right? So we head off on our day trip, each on our bikes, following Mr Hung (our Easy Rider) around to various stops. These included a 'Crazy Monk' monastery, some flower growing farms, the local village farms, coffee plantations, and then onto a place where they grow silk worms from lave. By this point I was feeling a little light headed, and needed to sit down in this poor persons house... Within minutes I passed out and threw up all over myself (great!). Seems I'd gotten full-on food poisoning. Scared the boys a bit. Bless Mr Hung, he was very helpful, and the owner of the house tried some acupressure on my temples and between my eyes (it hurt!), that left me with marks that have only just disappeared now – didn't really help. So Lukas drove my bike, coming back to pick his up later, and I hung onto Mr Hung as they took me back to the hotel. Took some medicine and slept the rest of the afternoon. The lads went back to get Lukas' bike, and continued the day-tour onto some waterfalls ,and silk factory. I was well enough to eat half a bowl of soup by the evening, but was still fragile.

After a great nights sleep I felt okay again by the morning, and we decided we'd done most of what Dalat had to offer, so we checked out of our hotel, and hit the road again. We had an ambitious plan to drive about 170km to another town in the highlands, near a national park, but once again we had problems with our directions... This time we headed about 50km in on direction too far, realising later (after much aggravated head scratching) we had to go backwards, in order to go forwards. The signs are really poor, and Dalat was an absolute maze to navigate. The diversion was very pretty, and the roads fun to drive, but it was costly in terms of time (considering we'd gotten up soon after 5:00am to set off ealry).

Eventually we made it to the right road, and were well on our way. The mountain roads were great, fun to drive around again, but a little dangerous, and my bike was in need some TLC by this point. So much so I slipped on some sand going around a corner and crashed it :S I wasn't going very fast, and only had a few scrapes & bruises. My bike needed a little welding, so we stopped in the next village to reattach my footrest pedals and stand. It helped make me a little wiser, and more cautious from then on, and more determined to fix up my bike to be more road worthy (the guys had some work done one theirs while I was bed-ridden in Dalat).

On the road


Eventually we make it to Boun Ma Thout before dark (6pm here) and find a pretty decent little hotel outside of town. This city is pretty grim – pollution-city! Just a couple of main roads packed with constant traffic, and it's filthy – so so dirty, but it acts as a good base for exploring the local area, and Peter negotiated us a pretty good deal (he's good at that), on possibly the nicest room we've stayed in yet – we all had our own beds! Good thing too as we were knackered! We clocked up 250km of driving in one day, had an accident, and uncoupled our bags several times to refuel along the way.

The following day we went in search of the national park. Again there were zero signs, so we were doing circles and trying roads, attempting to ask for directions where we could (didn't help very often). Eventually we found it, and the girl in the office there told us it was Sunday (we've lost track of days), and they weren't open (or at least no guides were working), until tomorrow at 7am.We managed to extract from her level of English that it was possible to do a couple of day tour in the Yok Don national park, the the map had pictures of tigers, elephants, monkeys and all sorts of animals, so we thought great – we'll come back tomorrow at 7, all prepared with minimal gear to go on a 2/3 day hike through the jungle.

Driving down the 'light' jungle paths


For the rest of the afternoon we found a 'Bamboo Village' where you could take an elephant ride (they didn't look well looked after) and look around the village, as well as do a bamboo bridge walk, where there was some appalling treatment of animals that really turns your stomach – monkey's especially; locked in a 1m² cage going crazy walking in circles, as the Vietnamese tourists poke them with sticks and throw rubbish in their cages. Sick! If the ticket office girl spoke any English, other than numbers in multiples of the ticket price, I'd of demanded my money back. So we headed back to the hotel.

I took this opportunity to get my bike fixed up in a garage. They can fix anything in this country – they don't just replace stuff. I had my front shock absorbers repaired, a new front tire (was pretty bald - hence accident), the battery acid topped up, an oil change, and the light fixed (sort-of), which came to a grand total of less than £5 for all parts and over an hour labour! Then we headed out for a meal in the city – ate at a lovely seafood place where we ate tonnes of shellfish by blindly pointing at menu items we couldn't understand. Then early to bed, and preparing for the national park tour the following morning.

Eating out


5:15am – alarms wake us. We pack up, checked out, and got back to the park (40km away) by 6:50. The (semi)-English speaking guide (boss as the girl from the day before called him), told us of our options, and broke our hearts saying there weren't many opportunities to animals at this time of year :( Seem they all bugger off to a tastier place during the dry season here. We could still go, but it's possible we'd see nothing. A several day hike no longer seemed like a good idea, and the cost involved hiring an elephant to carry our luggage, tents, food and water ($70 a day). Eventually we found an option that suited us – we could go by bike (after crossing a river by boat) for 1 hour through the boring part of the forest, until we reach the interesting bit nearer the mountain – there we'd have the most likelihood of seeing something. So we set off with our (seemly mute) guide and packed lunches, drove there for an hour, RAN (this guy didn't want to go slow!) through the Jungle for 90 mins, saw bugger all, and drove back. Lukas was so unimpressed he took one picture of one spider, and that's it! For those who know him – that should say a lot about how little there was. I mean Britain has more creepy crawly's than this place – there is so little life, I really can't believe it. You barely see any ant's let alone anything bigger.

A but pissed off at this point, we'd stumbled across this luxury resort on a lake to day before, which we'd decided to stay at for a day or two. It's dirt cheap, as it's mostly still in construction, and is only up and running with the most basic of amenities. We're the only guests in this 100 hectare spot on a lake, with our own cottage. There's a bizarre kiddies play zone with pools, play parks, and a pointless oval monorail that goes about 250m. But the staff are really friendly, the weather is good, and the scenery pretty special. We stumbled upon it looking for a rubber factory after seeing seeing the sign on the gate. Seems it's owned by Daklat Rubber Company – one of Vietnam's largest corporations. It's a bit like Lost - with the Dharma Initiative – setting up a community. Phase one will be finished in 2010, and finalised in 2020 when it will be one of the countries top health spa resorts.

Local scenery


While here we've been chilling out a bit. I went for another walk, hoping to find something – I didn't. We've travelled to a nearby town for lunch where I'm writing this, and then back to the resort where we'll probably hire a boat to explore the lake, have a nice meal, and check out tomorrow to head back to the coast to a place called Natrang, to some more exploring, before continuing the journey north.

Keep listening. And thanks for the comments guys – keep it up!

More images by Lukas

Day 10 – off roading

I have mapped our progress manually (our GPS mizmo didn't work :c ), and will continue to do this as long at it works... Zoom in for some nice detail on 'Sat' view.

Okay, so we spent a lot of time trying to get to Dalat. And it very odd. The guide books describe it as the Paris of Vietnam, and they weren't wrong. This place is ultra kitsch! It even has it's own mini Eiffel tower! People here dress with a European flare, fashion seems to matter, there are more bars, hi-end electronic shops, and some of the architecture here resembles what you might find in the French Alps. This was indeed a place the French (when Vietnam was a French colony – 1858-1954) decided to make a home-from-home to escape the sizzling heat of the dry season. At nearly 1500m above sea level the climate is certainly different to what we've been used to – you need a blanket at night, and it even rained here today. This is a place that many Vietnamese come as a honey-moon destination, and is popular with tourists due to it's cosmopolitan vibe, and golf course at the centre (flickr).

We read a lot about this place when researching and it sounded promising, especially being the so called capital of the highlands – the area where we expected to find many rural (stereotypical) Vietnamese sights. The morning consisted of driving to a monastery, which was really lovely – a very tranquil place with some nice views (apart from the tourist shops with caged monkeys to attract attention). After which we went to the main waterfall in the area – horrible! The falls were okay (it is the dry season after all!), but it was SUCH a tourist place tacky as hell. So we did our thing and left.

After we went back into the city toured around the central lake a little, then ventured east. We decided to get off the main roads and start exploring the countryside a bit. And boy was it the country side – massive valleys, filled with beautiful countryside, stepped farmland & paddies that just went on forever. Truly awe-inspiring! We enjoyed ourselves so much we forgot about time, distance, and petrol again. This time it was Lukas that ran dry, quite literally at the top of the hill that takes us back onto the main road, where by another amazing stroke of luck there just happened to be a petrol pump (there are stations like at home, but most are barrels linked to hand pumps in people drives you can buy from)10metres away – lucky lucky boy! :)

By this point we were covered in head-to-toe in red dust from the off-road paths we'd taken. I haven't been that dirty in a while. But we have some amazing pictures to show for it (to follow once we find somewhere decent – Lukas isn't having a good time with his machine...). After some more driving around, we settled for one of the best meals we've had in the country so far, and back into an internet café to update our progress.

Tomorrow we hope to hire an 'easy rider' biker dude for the day, to take us to more remote places that we can't find in any guide, and show us more of the real countryside we loved so much today. More stories to follow.

Plus, due to popular demand, we'll do our best to get some pictures up of our hair cuts ;)

Day 9 - Biker boys from Europe

Well the bikes were definitely a good idea! They've all got some little quirks, and a few pretty big ones, but they work, and they are soooo much fun to drive around - really the best way to see this country! Strapping the backpacks to the seat (designed for only two human asses) is a little uncomfortable, but the distance we wanted to travel to go to Dlata in the highlands didn't look or sound that great... The helpful chap who helped negotiate the bike deal told of us a road that seemed to be on our map of the country that would be the best route to take. We wrote down the instructions, and some inVietnamese to ask the more common non-English variety of local hoping they could simply point us in the right direction if needed.

So we got up, packed, loaded the bikes, and set off on the first road trip. It was an absolute delight to begin with! The south of the country is pretty flat, and vast areas are counted in dessert-like sand-dune systems that stretch for hundreds of kilometers. The roads here were pretty new and mostly deserted, so we could really tear it up and take in the fantastic views - meandering around the planes of this land, stopping in small villages were we always became the instant focus of attention, especially to young schoolchildren, who were all too keen to practice the English they'd learned in school. A few hours later and we were on the highways (scary at first!) looking for our secret turning to take us on ascenic mountain tour to our final destination. Now there are as good as zero road signs here, and the few there are pretty useless. The roads twist and turn with such irregularity that a compass is not that helpful either... we took the turning when we thought we were upon it, and probably drove over 15km down this road that got ever smaller until we were at the foot of the mountains and the path was now so small and hidden by plant-growth a rambler would even complain. So we admitted defeat and returned to the highway. We repeated this a few times, and spent the better part of the day going down road that we simply weren't supposed to. It was 2 hours till night fall and we were still nearly 200km from our destination. So we decided to rest up at the first reasonable looking/priced place we could find. After asking around we found a nice little place on the coast that cost us about $3 each to kip forth night. Crashed early and woke up at 6 to leave by 7 again and attempt to get to Dalat. This time we decided to take to longer way around, and stick to the highways. They're pretty grim in terms of traffic volume, and the shear amount of crap in the air that you're breathing in, and makes you and your clothes filthy. but after a few hours midday rest to avoid the hottest part of the day, we arrived safe and sound in Dalat, and have checked into a nice enough hotel, and eaten a decent meal. Now we off to bed early to start exploring this new part of the country - hoping to see waterfalls, jungle, lakes and possibly more... stay tuned :)

Amusing parts of the journey so far include:

My bike has no speedo, and the fuel gauge is very unreliable. Suffice to say Iran out of petrol and my bike just stopped. My horn doesn't work (no pun intended) and I was at the back at that point, so I ground to a halt, while the lads teared off into the distance. Thankfully we have a system where we're always checking behind us to make sure we're all okay. So the guysbarley got a kilometer or two before they headed back to find me... Even more fortunate I stopped 200m from a petrol station, so pushed the Pony in and filled her up. She sure is a thirsty beast - the other guys seem to be using a lot less fuel than her...?

A few minor accidents, where we nearly get driven off the road by large vehicles. There's this invisible 'middle-lane' that they all seem to use, and a large number of heavy vehicles moving raw materials around, that other large vehicle like to overtake. It's pretty mad, and the main cause of the frequent "horrific accidents" the guide book described. But we're pretty careful really.

Our shock absorbers have been shot to hell. The roads are mostly bad here, and when they're not bad, they about as bad as they can get. So it's not a comfortable ride, and with 25% of a seat designed for two bums you can imagine where most of the impact is directed. So we're pretty glad to have a day off tomorrow and use our legs again for a while...

Oh, my grab handle around the back of my seat I use for bungee-ing my pack to the bike got completely sheared off (the aluminium simply shattered), so had to get that fixed. Lukas' bike fell over (while at a standstill), and he snapped his front-brake handle, so we had to get that fixed, and my pack tilted over to one side, so when I stopped it pulled the bike over, and threw me into a patch of thorny plants.

Peter has been lucky so far. We think he got the best bike, as he's had no problems and it does seem to be the best behaved. But he's also the most experienced biker - could have something to do with it...? So we have to just keep taking the piss out of his bright red skin ;) LOL

But all-in-all it's been well worth it!!! When the roads clear, and the road becomes challenging (like ascending the snaking mountain paths to reach the highlands), the scenery and weather make it all worth while, as does the feeling that first beer on a comfy seat when we rest for the day. We've seen some amazing sights along the way, and we'll see many more in the weeks to come! We're loving it!!!!

Day 7 – The beach

Okay, quite a lot has happened since I last blogged. So we left Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) on a bus bound for Phan Thiet on the coast. Seem the place we're stying is in a smaller (and thankfully nicer) village 20km outside of Phan Thiet, called Mui Ni (flickr). It's really rather nice here, so nice we extended our stay an additional 2 nights. The weather is nicer (above 30 degrees in the middle of the day), and we're staying in a nicer resort where we have our own bungalow, and there's a lovely pool! We're considering this our relaxing start to the journey, that turned out to be longer than we originally thought. Also the food is pretty damn good – being on the coast we get to eat some good quality fish, squid, octopus, and shellfish. YUM!

We've been doing some looking around, as well as just chilling on the beach or by the pool. Saturday we rented some bikes to have a good look around, Lukas didn't wear sunscreen, and now has the reddest neck and forearms you've ever seen! :) Quite literally a redneck. And Peter is a total lobster having put no sunscreen on the day before on the beach. I'm the only one will that doesn't look like a Brit-abroad! (touchwood) But the main reason for hiring our bikes was to give us transport to help realise our idea of buying some bikes over here to travel a chunk of our journey with, as it really is the only way to travel, and we were using them often enough has taxi's anyway. So we drove to the centre of Phan Thiet initially hoping to buy some brand new bikes. We found a few places that sell them and were looking at some Honda Dream 100cc bikes, not real Honda's of course, literally everything here is fake, the genuine article is generally very expensive and out of reach for most people living here. But we found it frustrating, as understandably we had many questions about the registration, insurance, and other details that we wanted answering before committing to a purchase. The shop owners seemed keen to sell us the new bikes, but no one could speak a bean of English, so we left in search of more helpful people.

Eventually, back in Mui Ni (just a few hundred metres from our hotel) we found a tour operating/bar/restaurant/bike rental place (there's a lot of these!) were the owners 16 year old son could speak the best English of anyone we'd encountered to date. After he'd confirmed our fears that as foreigners we cannot buy brand new bikes due to registration complications, we expressed our interest in buying 3 bikes, and immediately they were on the phone calling people. Within 5 minutes we had a row of second-hand bikes lined up in front of us to start trying. It wasn't easy, but about 12 different bikes tests, and 3 hours later we'd found 3 bikes who's quality and price we were happy with, and after some hard bartering, and a couple of beer later we were the proud owners of 3 (fake) 100cc ex-rental bikes. We got each for under $500 (USD). Last night we drank many more beers, then 5 bottles of pretty terrible Vietnamese wine to celebrate. So this morning we just rested of our hangovers by the pool, and this afternoon we went back into Phan Thiet to get some extra rope and bungies to strap our packs to the back of our bikes, and buy our own helmets for the next step in our journey. I named my bike “Lady Pony”, and by sheer coincidence my new helmet has 'Jockey' written on the side :)

Once we're done with them we'll just sell them on again. We'll be lucky to get half the price back realistically, but it's the experience we're paying fo0rf. Buses only go to so many locations here, and you pass so much beautiful scenery en-route and have no way of stopping and exploring. Now we have the freedom we need to fulfil our needs.

And so here we are, about to check out of our hotel tomorrow, strap everything we own over here to the back of our new bikes, and head to the next step in our journey were the real adventure begins – up into the central high-lands, to a place called Dalat. There we hope to see the mountains, waterfalls, some national parkland (and hopefully some Tigers), and then figure out what to do next...

Day 03 (the boys hgave landed) - Ho Chi Minh city

I doubt we'll be able to upload photos as we go due to sheer volume (especially Lukas! ;), and upload speeds are terrible, so that will have to wait until the end I'm affraid. I the meantime I’ll intersperse descriptions with links to photos others have taken to give a visual impression should you wish to explore.

Although Lukas (through some technical wizardry) has managed to resize a few that you can view here on his Czech blog he is keeping.

Well, I made it, and this time, so did Lukas!
I met up with Lukas & Peter ahead of schedule in Qatar airport, and got our connecting flight to Vietnam without a hitch! Horah! :)

The airline didn’t do anything special for the new years being spent on a plane, but it was quiet! I mean Heathrow was pretty busy as always, but the flight I got to Qatar was only about 20% full, meaning everyone had their own space, to kick back ands relax in. It was a nice modern plane with on demand video, really nice staff, and decent meals. Qatar airport was a bit mad; completely disorganised, but we got through it okay, and onto the final flight. Last plane wasn’t as flash, but still it was bearable as this flight was maybe 50% full, meaning there was space to spread out a little. I recommend flying on new years!

So we land, get a cab to our hotel in the center, eat, drink a lot, and then crashed out for 12 hours. The following afternoon we started to explore the city. It’s kind of S.E.Asia crazy, with 10 million motorbikes/mopeds on the roads in Ho-Chi-Minh city alone, and only a handful of cars and busses. Crossing the street at first seems like a life threatening procedure, but you soon get used to it, everyone is very aware of everything going on around them, and because of the severe congestion they can only go so fast (flickr pics). The horn is used as a form of communication, you can’t be near a street without hearing one go off every few seconds. The shops are all coated in neon (flickr pics), the power lines are all overhead and there are many thousands of cables at each junction. All just as you’d imagine it really.

Lukas and I also shaved out heads, down to a couple of millimeters (at the time we could only find a posh lady hairdresser to do it in, which the owner found very amusing), is nice in the mid-20’s heat here. Peter had hair like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction before he came (apparently), but his girlfriend kindly removed the lot before he set off :)

After we finally got up yesterday, we walked clear across the south-east districts to the financial area, and then took a boat ride over the river and up a canal, you find the more shanty town like dwellings. It’s interesting to see such a contrast of living conditions just across the water.

We’ve found some great places to eat (and a few crap ones, as you do). Today we went on a bus tour to the Vietcong tunnels – a kind of prefab theme park to demonstrate the tunnel systems dug during the war to combat & confuse the Americans, and protect themselves from the carpet bombing of the region that took place. Was interesting to hear the story from out guide – someone who was actually in the war - and to experience for a brief moment of time what these soldiers experienced for weeks on end (flickr pics). It s all pretty tacky in that touristy-way, but worth the experience. Then we explored more of the city this afternoon, followed by a few more beers, and after writing this we’re off for a meal, then to bed early.

Tomorrow morning we leave the city, and have booked ourselves into a beach resort further up the coast called Phan Theit (below), where we intend to relax for a few days (the jet lag, has really taken it out of us… well me) and enjoy some beach activities before continuing north to start the real adventuring.

All, in all, we’re having a fantastic time, the people are all really friendly, the food is good, everything is silly cheap, and we’re full of anticipation of wear our adventure will take us next.

P.S. Lukas covered our guide book with soy sauce, in a series of butter finger moments earlier, I’m being bombarded by ants as I type.

MORE TO FOLLOW SOON!

Our next destination, Phan Thiet: