Travel blog

Day 91 - Final entry, time to come home :(

2008-03-31T10:40:00.001+01:00

Well following my last post, after completing my last dive day, I went straight from the internet café to a party at the dive centre - it was Evylene's dive-master graduation (the sister of Christophe, our dive instructor). I met up with Alex and Dave and we started to enjoy a few beers and barbecue seafood. Later came Evylene's initiation - a snorkel with a upside-down bottle attached to the end, into which they poured a bucket of Samsung (local moonshine-style whiskey/rum out here). She managed to get through the whole bucket, and following a bow to applause she made a bit of a mess in the fish pond behind her :)

Later all were pretty drunk, and everyone at the party ended up getting chucked into the diving pool fully clothed (myself included) by this beefcake dive master. Then onto the late-night bar afterwards for some more drinking and (watching other people) dancing. A said goodbye to Alex and Dave sometime in the early hours. A few more hours later and I was up to frantically pack, and start my journey to Bangkok. I felt awful! To make matters worse I had to stop the group taxi (that gets you to the ferry) and jump out 400m down the road as I realised I left my passport with the guesthouse. A sweaty fast-paced walk back to collect it, and a fortuitous bumping into a diver instructor from another dive school, allowed me to hitch a lift back to the ferry, which I made with time to spare. Following that, a bus ride which I slept pretty much the whole way through ending up in central Bangkok late afternoon.

Didn't do much there except go for a walk around the local area the first night, eat, then catch up on some much needed sleep, by which time my taxi arrived to take me the the airport for my flight to Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, to meet the boys and get our return flight home.

My impression of Bangkok is limited by the minuscule amount of it I experienced, but it doesn't seem as bad as many made it out to be. The mishmash of architecture I observed on the final leg of the journey in was pretty fascinating, massive high-tech skyscrapers and luxury accommodation next to shanty towns over a stagnant pond. Massive investment in infrastructure with spaghetti junction style highways suspended 30m in the air on giant concrete pillars plunging the streets below into perpetual darkness. A bustling atmosphere that (where I was anyway) seemed more tame than I was expecting. Somewhere I'll have to return to another time (Thailand is a big place, and will have to wait for another adventure) to experience it properly. The airport in Bangkok was the best I've been in!

Bangkok at night, showing the crazy road systems flying through the air

Image source; flickr

The journey went like custard (sweet and smooth), and by the evening I was back in the centre of Saigon (HCM), and found the hotel and room Lukas was staying in. Went for some drinks with him, and Peter soon joined us for a good catch up on what we'd all been doing of he past week. Being our last night we made it a big one – had some nice seafood, and drank quite a bit, got a nice hangover to sleep off on the plane journey home. Have just done some last-minute shopping, going back to do a final pack, then get our taxi to the airport. It's 2 flights that take about 18 hours, but loosing 7 hours in time difference put me back in the UK tomorrow morning, and home for lunch. Final visual-journey update for Cambodia & Thailand.

Thailand was a much more developed country than the others, followed by Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos was undoubtedly the poorest, least developed. Every country was unique, and good for different reasons. I can't say I enjoyed one more than the others, as we did very different things in each. All were great, and I'd happily return to every one. Parts of northern-Laos we didn't get to explore I'd love to visit, and the rest of Thailand too. But all this and more will have to wait for another time.

It's been a fantastic journey. Have experienced some truly amazing things, and been some countless places that have blown me away. Have used 6 motorbikes and 3 push-bikes, ridden in over 20 coaches, in 4 different countries, where I've travelled (somewhere in the region of) 10,000km must have seen over 100 cities, town and villages. Have been burnt in blistering high temperatures, soaked in tropical rain storms, and been freezing cold - wearing as many layers as I could fit. Been in several different sea's, couple of lakes, countless rivers, and just one swimming pool :)

90 days/3 months, talking to people back home, seems to have flown by for many, but for me, the experience has helped make it feel like an eternity – doing something different and exciting every single day sure beats the daily repetition of life back home. I can hardly remember what it's like to live my life, and am looking forward to experiencing that weird unfamiliar sensation you get reintegrating back into your everyday routine. But my eyes have been opened further than I ever thought possible, and they'll never close the same way again.

Thanks to all those who communicated with me out here, and to all who have been reading and commenting on the blog as we've been going. I've enjoyed writing it, and will be archiving it somewhere as a personal diary (I'll correct the spelling and bad grammar ;), for those who who didn't get a chance to read it all – sorry I wrote so much.

If you're interested to know what you've been a part of, the web stats are; 350 unique visitors made over 1000 visits, with 2,500 page views. All from 33 different countries around the world and over 50 cities in the UK alone, with 14% of you lovely people using Macs :).

Thanks again for listening, and looking forward to seeing you all as soon as possible.

Lukas is writing his final entry right now to, and if there's time he may even upload his final set of images from roaming the street of Ho Chi Ming city, in which case they'll be in the usual place.

Day 87 – And now, then end is near, it's time to face, the dive site

2008-03-28T12:58:00.003Z

As planned here in Thailand, I've done my PADI open water certification which allows me to dive unattended with a buddy to 18m/60ft which took 3 days – one of theory, and two of practical with knowledge reviews in-between. It was hard work but pretty fun, and teaches you the basics of recreational shallow-diving. In doing the diving I met some nice fellow Brits who've been helping keep me company here in Koh Chang. One chap Alex (ex footballer, now stone-mason), from Oxford, was doing the course with me, but have never dived before, his friend David from Peterborough (already a qualified diver), and their friend Roger (who couldn't swim). Was nice to have someone English to go through everything with, and we were dive-buddies for our entire training period.

On board the dive boat. Alex in the green shorts, and David on the right holding the railing above.

We both past with flying colours, and enjoyed it so much we both decided to stay and further our scuba-education by doing our advanced course. This would be more challenging, as there are many more technical manoeuvres, processes and safety practices to master. The course came with yet another whopping text book (got to carry two of the buggers back now), which we had to study and pass knowledge review exams before each practical exercise.

The course took two days and included 5 dives; buoyancy control (learning to make yourself effectively weightless underwater & manoeuvring skills), navigation(plotting a course, setting headings and using a compass effectively), night-dive (diving at night), deep dive (diving to 30m/100ft to do arithmetic and test the effects of nitrogen narcosis on our bodies/minds), and search & recover (search patterns to locate and object, then use inflatable bags to float it to the surface).

Some were more fun than others, but all was thoroughly enjoyable, and great experience for a future where I intend to do much more diving! The instructors were great – always there to help and real good laugh, and the skills we applied today on our first fun-dive as qualified scuba divers! So I can now dive unattended to 30m/100ft, where 31 atmospheres of pressure is applied on your body – far out! :)

Dive sites here typically look like this – small island that is surrounded by reefs and life underwater. Crystal clear waters, with visibility ranging from 10-20m typically (good!).

So have basically spent the last 6 days on a boat diving around the numerous reefs and rocky islands out here. Seen a pretty vast array of underwater life, swum though schools of thousands of tropical fish (my favourite bit!), and made some new friends doing it.

This has of course been at the cost of not really seeing Bangkok -but after talking to a lot of people here who've been, it doesn't sound like a great place to be alone – more of a group thing, and only for the night life. No one seems to have much nice to say about the city itself... But I have to return there, o avoid 2/3 days on a bus to get back to Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam to meet the boys, and catch the return flight home. So tomorrow I'm getting the bus to Bangkok, spending one nigh there, then flying the next day direct to HCM, o meet the lads. One last night together, then we catch our return flight Monday afternoon. Will be back in the UK Monday afternoon, probably in a pretty bad state of jetlag, and ready to start reintegrating back in to blighty life.

A sample of what I'm leaving behind here – so tempted just to stay!

Will do a summary entry either between travelling, or once I'm back, as the rest of my time here is pretty much going to be ravelling around... Sleeping pills at the ready! :)

Am looking forward to seeing everyone again, and catching up on the past quarter of a year of your lives!

Lukas update:
He had finished with Campot, Cambodia, and has been doing his usual exploration (on a motor bike again) in search of photo worthy subject mater. I think he's done pretty well – check his latest work here. Today he should have made his way from Cambodians capital Phenom Phen over to join Peter in Vietnam, where Peter has been doing tours around the south of the country and finally getting to see all those museums we failed to get into when we were last there.

Day 82 – Separated in Cambodia

2008-03-22T09:24:00.002Z

That last few days we all spent together in Cambodia was pretty good. After returning from Bamboo island, we had a day to burn before our scheduled scuba dive. Lukas was feeling under the weather again, so we left him in bed, and Peter and I found some bikes to help explore the coastline. This time we didn't go for conventional motorbikes as we had in the past, we found these electric bikes from China that have pedals for when the motor runs out (or you come across a hill it can't handle), and a large removable battery that slots in the body.

Our funny little electric bikes – I really want one back home, would be great for zipping around London!

They were great fun – zipping around more or less silently at decent speeds, knowing you're not producing any bad emissions (although the power used to charge it obviously did), they were a right giggle and allowed us to visit all the surrounding beaches, some fancy resorts, and have a good look around town.

Beach on one of the resorts we drove into. Was too expensive to even consider buying a drink there

The scuba diving outing the following day was a resounding success! We set our early and after a 2 hour boat journey to get to the dive sites, we started our basic training in the shallow sandy area off an island with little more than a small fishing village in one corner. It was Lukas, Peter, a German chap, and myself in our group. Our Danish dive master was a funny chap who made the day or the more enjoyable as he took us through the basic training. Was all stuff I'd been over in the past, but nice to get a refresher. Half and hour of that followed by shallow first dive in the area concluded the morning, and it was back to the boat for lunch.

The fishing village off the coast of an island where we trained in the crystal clear wasters.

The afternoon was to be our dive over the reef. We only went down to around 12 metres, but the reef was pretty stunning, and one of the only left in the area after the extensive dynamite fishing that used to be practised here, as we'd experienced snorkelling on Bamboo island. The range of wildlife wasn't an abundant, but the environment made up for it. We saw plenty of schools of smaller fish, and lots of individual brightly coloured tropical varieties, but nothing much lager than your hand (well mine), a few crabs, a small octopus, and various things like sea cucumbers sitting on the bottom. After our second hour in the water it was time to get back to the boat and head back. A day well spent, one that turned out to be the last we'd spend together in a while.

Lukas has all the pics of the diving day, so will have to wait till he publishes them to see, but they should end up here when ready.

That night it was celebration time – good day, and bye bye Peter for a wee while. We all had come to the conclusion that we wanted to do separate things in the remaining time we had, to get what we each wanted to round off the experience. Peter really wanted to go back to Vietnam, do the Mekong delta area we bypassed at the beginning of our journey, and see Ho Chi Minh city properly, which we didn't really get a chance do to when we were last there. I really wanted to stick to the coast, and do some more diving. The one day we did in Sihanoukville convinced me it was what I wanted, and speaking to people we met there, that Thailand was the place to do it. Lukas wasn't keen to return to Vietnam just yet, and diving for 3 or 4 days straight didn't appeal either (also being Czech, the boys would have to pay for a Thai visa, while I don't need one). So yesterday Peter set off early in the morning to catch his bus, while Lukas and I bummed around on the beach, playing pool most of the day (Lukas seemed to be doing well at at first, but once I warmed up I really kicked his but :) then the following morning I awoke to catch my bus and leave Cambodia.

Lukas and my last day on the beach – beer and squid (+ lots of pool) about sums it up, oh and rain – short-lived thunderstorm that night – our first in Cambodia.

It wasn't a simple trip. Due to lack of infrastructure, the first river we came to required exiting the bus, and climbing aboard a raft to be ferried across to the other side where there was another bus waiting for us (well it arrived 30 mins later). A few more hours on the road, and another bridge that was incomplete – this time we could walk across to a third coach. This took us all the way to the border where we left it behind, got through border control had another stamp added to the passport, then found our appropriate minibuses that would take us onwards. Mine took us to a town further down the coast, where we collected our ferry tickets and waited for a dude in a truck to take us to the ferry. Another wait for the ferry, and we were across the water in no time. Once there I need to get a van with a group of others to a resort I chose pretty much at random. Updated visual journey progress.

The small, overcrowded first ferry to bypass the river where a bridge was still in construction.

Am now in a place called 'White Sand beach' on the north of the island, and is pretty expensive/less cheap than what I've been used to. Talking to a few people here, seems I chose the family destination. There's plenty to do here – nice restaurants, beach, shops. It's just all a bit too package-holiday for me. So I got up early, rented a bike (110cc Suzuki this time) and went exploring. I must have looked around 25 bungalows on the beach, but think I've found one that a good balance of quality and price, in a lively area. Moving there in a bit with my bag. This island has some pretty stunning scenery, and the roads are literally like a roller-coaster – ridiculous hills, dips and curves that are such fun to drive around, and give you that weightlessness feeling in the pit of our stomach as you burn around them.

Beach scenery here is pretty stunning, and it's got the super hot weather to match!

I also used the time to explore the diving options, and think I've found the best dive centre (well it had the most attractive women working there) with whom I kick off 3 days of diving tomorrow. Starting with basic training again – will be going into much more depth than before and doing lots of theory as well as emergency procedures underwater. Following completion I might do an extra day out at sea, so I can use my PADI immediately and experience an entire day of diving without having to learn anything – just enjoy it. Got my text book already, so reading up on that tonight.

Once I've done all that I'll likely head to Bangkok for a few days while I'm here (please comment and leave tips anyone who has been, remember to say whose commenting so I know who to thank :) ) before getting a flight back to Ho Chi Minh to meet up with the boys and get our return flight back home :(

Once the boy Lukas and Peter get online and in touch, I'll post updates here in English (for the non-Czech speaking out there) for everyone to follow :)

Day 77 – relaxation time :)

2008-03-17T15:46:00.000Z

So last I wrote we had just finished Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. Following that we jumped onto another bus and headed back to the capital, Phnom Penh – the central transport hub for the country. While there we stayed 2 nights and a day to have a look around. The first night we checked into the traveller part of town on the lake-side. A bustling street of guesthouses, hostels, bars and restaurants. I'd spotted a poker night tournament sign on our way through here the previous week, and luckily our return timed perfectly with the next match, so Lukas and I signed up.

The sun setting over the lake at our cheap-as-chips guesthouse.

The pub was British run – had a pool table (which was to be our poker table), darts, footie – the works, and most of the people playing were British too! After a few hours I was knocked out, and the two tables of 19 people (total) merged for the last showdown of the final 8 survivors, of which Lukas was still one. He almost got wiped out at one point but recovered from practically nothing, and ended up winning the game (well after 45mins with the final chap, they were 50/50 on chips and split 1st & 2nd place between them and called it a draw) – trained the boy well ;) Following that Lukas and I spent most the morning recovering from the booze we drank, while Peter did tourist attractions around the city. Once the haze had passed, Lukas and I joined him in town for a final few sights, then back for a nice meal, and to bed, as the next morning we were on the move again to Sihanoukville on the coast.

Central market in the city centre.

Our plan in Sihanoukville was to get to an island straight away, and start the winding-down part of the journey. There's only one boat a day that we'd missed by the time we arrived, so got accommodated and hit the beach for the afternoon there. It's like a ruined European holiday destination here – Brits everywhere! (most of which look like they belong in Ibiza), but it's still enjoyable.

Playing pool in a beach bar.

Next morning and we packed again to get on-board the boat and get to our secluded island destination – Bamboo island. The boat we needed to board was 20m off-shore, and not thinking it through I decided to wade into the sea fully clothed (well shorts & t-shirt), forgetting I had my mobile in my pocket, which ended up being submerged in the water for a minute or two. Suffice to say it no longer works, so I can't reply to any calls, voicemail or text messages, until I get back and sort out a new one... email only for a while :) Updated visual journey progress map.

View from the beach as we landed on Bamboo island.

An hour later we'd arrived and checked into our bungalow on the beach. This place is no tropical island like you find in Thailand, but it's extremely nice none-the-less. Warm, clear ocean, sandy beaches, palms, hot hot weather, hammocks and beer. We stayed 3 days and 2 nights, and did little more than hit the beach, swim, snorkel, read our books, eat and drink. It was a really nice break from all the travelling around and constant activities we'd been doing for the last 2.5 months, and sorely needed! This is a holiday after all :)

Our row of bungalows on the palm covered beach.

We met some nice people there, found a second, more secluded beach, on the other side of the island, and Peter and I went for a few hours boat trip where you watch the sunset over the ocean, and fish using some hand reels over the side. Didn't catch a bean, but others on-board had more luck, one girl from Quebec proved to be a pro catching two, and herself plus her friend proved to be nice dinner company too. We all enjoyed relaxing very much, and we're all a bit orange-er as a result :D

View of the sun setting from the boat.

Today we got the evening boat back to the mainland, where we intend to bum about on the beach one more day, then I've roped the boys into doing a scuba discovery 1-day course with me on Wednesday, that I'm really looking forward to. There's only a few dive sights here that are any good though – it used to be different, once sharing comparable coral reefs to Thailand with abundant sea life - but he locals used to do a lot of fishing with dynamite that has destroyed nearly all the reefs in their entire section of the Gulf of Thailand, as we experienced when snorkelling on the island – not much down there. But we've been assured they have some decent sites, and fingers crossed it will be good... After that we are still thinking what to do, Peter is keen to return to Vietnam for the Mekong-delta and spend some more time in Ho Chi Minh city (where we will eventually fly home from in 2 weeks time), while I'm thinking of continuing scuba diving to complete my PADI qualification (here if it's good, Thailand if it looks better?), and Lukas isn't sure...? We all want to get different things done in our time remaining, so parting ways might be best for everyone, and meet up again in Ho Chi Minh once more for the final few days before flying home :( But nothing is decided yet, so lets see...

Happy St Patrick's day all you Irish blooded people out there.

More pictures from Lukas as usual.

Day 71 – the ruins of Angkor

2008-03-11T09:45:00.006Z

Leaving Lukas behind in few days ago in the east of Cambodia to add to his child photography collection, Peter and I continued ahead, travelling on buses for 2 days, getting clear across the country to start our planned 3-day tour of the legendary ruins of Angkor, the remnants of the Khmer empire that spanned 600 years and dominated the bulk of S.E. Aisa since the 9th century. Lukas wasn't keen to see them anyway, so we didn't feel too bad about leaving him behind... That is until he was further delayed by some dodgy pineapple that didn't agree with him, making a bus journey to catch up as planned the following day not possible.

You buy a 1, 3 or 7 day pass for the ruins. We thought 3 should be enough, and so set off on day one with our tuktuk (small motorbike powered cart found everywhere throughout S.E. Asia) driver Rich – who was a very pleasant chap indeed – a rare thing to found in a tuktuk driver in most people experiences. Day one started late morning with The biggest and most well-known of all the temples – Angkor Wat – the temple outline that features on the Cambodian national flag. I could go on forever about the details of each temple we visited (20 in all), but am sure I'd bore you all to death, so will list the main ones, and give you a picture-fest below :)

Angkor Wat really is rather large and impressive – built in the early 12th century for King Suryavarman II . Surrounded by a giant moat and protected by enormous walls, the inner courtyard leading up to the main temple stretches for hundred of metres. Once we reached the main complex it took us 3 hours to full explore it. It's the most intact of all the temples and is by far the most popular one to visit.

The view from the opposite/east end of the temple

A stitched together panoramic shot from inside the inner courtyard – impossible to fit it all in a single shot! Huge! Picture doesn't do it justice.

After that bombshell, we moved swiftly on to Ankor Thom – a series of temple complexes housed within a giant outer wall with impressive entrance gates depicting giant warriors handling mythical multi-headed serpents. Inside we viewed another 4 temples; The Bayon, Terrace of Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King and The Baphoun. One of which was being restored by the occupying French in the 40's – a giant jigsaw puzzle with a million pieces, carefully dismantled, catalogued and restored. In the process of the French relinquishing control of the area, all the plans were lost, leaving this unsolvable puzzle spread across acres of surrounding forest land. Only now with the advent of computers can they scan each piece and find it's most likely location in the temple. It'll be decades till they finish!

Bayon was one of my favourites – the centre of the old capital, it really seemed like a city with corridors & usable rooms, not just a giant shrine – loads to explore :)

One of the temples within (I forget which one – might be Phinmeanakas?). This one more of a layered pyramid style construction with damn steep slope - Peter there scaling the side.

After leaving the complex we ventured into a nearby collection of more Romanesque style ruins with column supported roofs and large stone doorways. Each temple is restored with the collaboration of another nation – presumably for each nation to cash in on the huge business of millions of tourists a year coming to see these ruins, and each shelling out a hefty entrance fee.

Thommanon temple ruins, restored in collaboration with Japan I think... could have been Switzerland?

Directly opposite was a temple called Chau Say Tevoda. This one restored in collaboration with China – not such a good quality job done here, but still, better than a pile of rubble I guess.

We continued to be driven around by Rich in our tuktuk, visiting more and more temples. By the end of the day we'd seen 8, and had a sunset view planned for dusk.

Ta Nei – the tallest (after Angkor Wat – whose tallest points were closed for restoration) we'd climb, took some doing by this point, but the view was well worth it.

We finished with a jungle temple – another sprawling complex , this time encased in wildlife, with giant tree roots slowly pulling apart the immense brickwork over hundreds of years.

At sunset we grabbed a few beers and climbed with a flood of other tourists to the top of a hill to a less impressive (in construction) temple at the peak, that gave an outstanding panorama of the surrounding promodominantly flat area. We sat with everyone else to watch the sun set just off the horizon in a shroud of haze, before the mad dash back down to the the first to get to your driver and avoid the inevitable traffic chaos.

Sunset at Phnom Bakheng on the hill, with at least a thousand other people.

Day 2 we were pretty knackered, and so started a little later, but we still had a lot to cover. Less descriptive detail and more pictures now...

Banteay and it's confusing layout that left your head spinning.

Pre rup – another whopper to climb, this image taken from the second-tear, looking up at the top.

East Mebon was another set of ruins taken over by the jungle. Here we could see the infamous image of the gateway and budda face behind encased in a tree almost as ancient as the building itself. Stunning!

Preah Neak was a water-temple, that in the wet-season is filled to create islands and public baths that leach into one another, and into a surrounding moat.

Preah Kan was the last of day 2, and very impressive to explore – again more jungle encroachment throughout, and more Romanesque features.

Another image from Preah Kan – showing the multiple floor column layouts that seem more similar to ancient ruins found in Europe. These being constructed likely had some influence from the west by this point.

Day 3, and Lukas made it into town, and joined us. We saved the sunrise day just for him, as we knew he'd like the light condition's for photography and it's another opportunity to see Angkor Wat – the largest, that he'd missed previously on our first day. A ridiculously early rise, and run to the back for what turned out to be a bit of a disappointing dawn – too much haze.

Leaving only the west-side silhouette image the only real winner.

the rest of day 3 was overall less impressive. We done all the large temples, leaving only the far flung smaller ones to explore for the rest of the morning. The distances we had to cover in the tuktuk (not the most comfortable of vehicles) were greater, and the reward less. To add to this our tiredness levels after two full days of walking and climbing in near 40 degree dry temperatures and getting up at 4:30 that morning – we were glad that they took less time to explore, and longed for our hotel, some lunch and a well-deserved beer.

Banteay Srei – a pocket-sized baby temple, but the most impressive of the day.

And so 3 days, 20 temples, a lot of walking, heaps of climbing, and many litres of water drank and evaporated right back out of us... later, we're now ready to leave this corner of the country to head back to the Capital Phnom Penh tomorrow. There we want one full day to explore, before making out plans to head down to the coast for the relaxing part of our travels – maybe an island...?

Until next time.

Day 68 – Cambodia wild-east exploration

2008-03-09T00:51:00.003Z

So we've been in Cambodia for 5 days now, most of which we've been spending on buses getting around, but have also been doing a fair amount of our usual exploring...

Upon crossing the border from Laos, we settled in the nearest city to the border for the night – Sung Treng. It was w bit of a hit hole to tell the truth, and not the best introduction to Cambodia, so we promptly sort out a bus the hell out of there. We were keen to do some more rural stuff before the planned onslaught of touristy attractions we had planned ahead. So we headed East to a place called Ban Lung in the province of Ratanakiri.

The shithole that is Sung Treng – the best image I could find to take of the place

The road was pretty rough, and the mini bus crammed to well over capacity – Cambodian people tend to overcrowd transport to bursting point, and we've seen minibuses that look like a 'maximum number of people in a mini' world record attempt, with a handful of people thrown on the roof for goods measure. We were sold the tickets with the assurance we would have one whole seat of reach of us,m and thanks to some Czech tenacity it stayed that way as the local squashed around us. The road was the roughest I'd ever experienced off a bike so far. It was little more than a dirt track through arid forest land with a surface that would take apart monster truck suspension. Our driver was really going for it, then slowing rapidly every few kilometres to a crawl to cross rickety old wooden bridges that are all in a scary state of disrepair. He held his fist to the windscreen as a sign of minibus driver comradeship at every oncoming bus that nearly drove us off the 'road'. All while we watched endless androgynous Thai pop stars performing incomprehensible renditions on the screen of the in-car karaoke system.

The road was dusty, dusty like we'd never seen – think red dust that just got everywhere, and blinded you as an oncoming vehicle tour up the surface at high speed. The town is nicknamed 'red-earth' by the locals after it's rust-coloured affliction.

The dusty town of Ban Lung – the wild-west of Eastern Cambodia, and the hunk of junk Honda Dreams we rented to get around this wasteland

We arrived in one piece, and booked into friendly little hotel that served the best food in town. Our plan was to hire motorbikes again and do some of the sights, and see some villages. The first day of which was a really lazy one. Guess we were pretty whacked after all the travelling, so all we managed in our first day was to see a lake, and 2 waterfalls. The lake was a water-filled extinct-volcano crater that provided a refreshing break from the searing the of the midday sun. It was also a nice way to removed some of the dust that we were completely covered in after only a few kilometres of driving.

Waterfalls on our first day of exploring...

Second day of driving we headed north in an attempt to find some isolated villages we'd read about in the sacred lonely planet. After some really fun driving down some seriously off-road paths, again coated in thick red dust, we hit our destination of Voen Sai, on the banks of the Tonle San river where we had a quick nose around, before taking a short but well deserved rest. We happened to stop for a drink in a place where a friendly English speaking chap offered us a boat tour up and down the river to see some villages that we wouldn't be able to reach on our own, and a cemetery. Sounded cool, so we hoped on board and headed upstream. There cemetery was creepy – embedded in the forest, were tens of shrine-like wooden graves, some hundreds of years old, each with carved figures depicted a story of the individuals unfortunate end.

Creepy village-cemetery in the jungle

Afterwards we wondered through the village, which we found to be a huge contrast to our village experienced travelling to date. Unlike the curiosity en-mass we'd experienced stumbling into isolated villages in Laos by bike, here (with a local guide) there was an air of unfamiliarity and almost fear directed towards us. It was easily dismissed with a simple greeting and smile, but the people were so much more cut-off from civilisation than anywhere else we'd been, I guess they just didn't know what to do. Lot s of people simply ran away, but we got to interact briefly with some, and were able to see there way of life in a way that wouldn't of been possible without our guide.

Village life for these people can be hard – many houses are in a deteriorating state as the families can't afford to fix them once damaged. We were assured they would get fixed – they just need to save the money first – can take a while

Two days of driving in the dust had fulfilled Peter and my satisfaction for this corner of the country, and we were keen to press onto Angkor Wat. Not really being Lukas' bag, and being unsatisfied with the volume of people shots from the overly shy villagers he decided to remain behind and catch up in a few days – tagging onto the back end of our 3 days exploring the ruins. Onto a coach (leaned our lesson – no more minibuses!) Peter and I hoped for a lovely 11 hour drive to the capital Phnom Penh. Here we just stayed the night in the travellers district which seemed to be a really party area – somewhere we'll be returning to properly on our way back down the country – and straight back onto another coach the following morning for 5 more hours to get us to Siem Reap the town just outside the vast complex of ancient Angkor temples.

An afternoon of exploring the small town and sorting our plans for some kick ass tomb raiding for the next few days, now we're fed, relaxed (after a massage to work out the two days of travelling), half-dunk and ready to rock tomorrow morning.

This is our Cambodian visual-journey update map – covered quite a lot in a few short days haven't we? Next time – Angkor temples, then back to the capital to see how the city folk here live...

The map above is pretty big, so here's a closer look at at our current location:

As always, you can see Lukas' updated snaps here.

One last thing, as I'm, finishing here, a giant fucking rat just crawled over my foot then climbed the wall behind me.... eeww! I'm outta here! TTFN.

Day 63 – Arrival in Cambodia

2008-03-03T09:42:00.003Z

Excuse the lack of pictures once again, but the machines here are not able to the business... :) Will update at later time.

So last I wrote we were in the southern most part of Laos, in a place called 4000 islands created by the Mekong river being at a lower level in this the dry season. There are several permanent islands that have year-round residents, and we we're staying on the largest - Don Khon. Our first full-day here we decided to hire push bikes and do a tour of the island - something like 20km+ round-trip. Lukas got up at a ridiculous hour to make use of the limited good light in the unforgiving weather out here, while Peter and I took our time, and went it alone in the other direction.

Seeing the island by bike was the best way, as you could burn across it on a motorbike in minutes. Also Laos is a very very relaxed place, more so than anywhere I've ever experienced, and down here in the islands – life barely even crawls along, they really do take the easy-going lifestyle to a new level. And in keeping with the way of life here, we were cycling at a pace to match – if not only to stop ourselves from sweating to death in the heat. Everyone here is 'off-the-scale friendly', with every household you pass shouting Sabadi (hello/general greeting) and waving as you pass at Lao pace. Kids especially are great again here – always really interested to meet you – jumping on your bikes back seat to get a lift somewhere – always joking and playing around.

We stopped at very hospitable man's riverside shed where we enquired if it was all right to rest. He seemed pleased to accommodate and brought us a mat and pillows to catch a power-nap in the shade. We were awoken by the town drunk (whom we always seem to attract), who caused a spot of bother with our host, and so we carried on our way soon after he was moved on.

The south of the island where we started was more populated, and as we continued into the north in the afternoon; the gaps between villages (and shade) became greater, and we soon started to feel the fatigue in the searing heat. Eventually we made it back, after stopping at every possible location for a beer-lao to cool down a little – sure it didn't help the energy levels much :)

That night we met a nice group of fellow travellers, who'd come together from all over the place. We had Brits, South-African's, American, Dutch, and Austrian. We had dinner and drinks together exchanging stories and tips for the various peoples alternative destination, and also talked a lot of bollocks.. as you do.

The following day we'd booked ourselves in on a day-tour to get a glimpse of the southern islands we couldn't be bother to go down and stay in. We took a boat, toured the islands, saw some old French-colonial railways, some villages, some cool waterfalls, swam in the river (clear of the falls of course) to cool off, and went dolphin watching. The second of the two falls we saw was pretty impressive – the whole Mekong falls over a ledge near the Cambodian border that's not that high, but it's wide and the largest in S.E.Asia (by volume of water). The dolphin watching consisted of dumping us on a small rock/island where you stood in silence looking for a river-dolphin to surface for air. They were always at least 100m away, so difficult to see in any detail (or photograph), but going for a swim allowed you to hear them which was much more incredible – it was so loud and sounded like a duck/cow combo noise in your ear.

We met our friends form the previous night again after dinner for drinks and conversation, before hitting the sack for the last time in Laos, as this morning we were booked on a minibus down into our third country – Cambodia. We crossed the border today, sorted our Visas and are now in a small town south of the Laos border. Our plan is to spent tonight here before heading East to see some of the rural side of the country before committing ourselves to what looks like 2 weeks of touristy activities including Ankor Wat, and some coastal towns before returning to southern Vietnam for our final stretch.

Over 2/3 of the way through now... :(

Day 60 - The last few days of biking

2008-02-29T07:07:00.000Z

Back on the road again, on the 4th day of our second biking adventure - this time we were off the main tarmac-ed roads and onto completely red-dirt rocky unmade surfaces, harder to drive, but more fun! :) This day was to start as a travel day - not much exploration planned as we had some distance to cover, and no guarantee the place we were aiming for could provide any accommodation for the night. The sky was brilliant blue, with not a cloud in sight, amazing considering the sky-scapes the night before we stood photography for an hour as the sun began to fall from the bridge in the town we were staying.

Skies like I'd never seen them in Attapeu - in all directions, a full 360 of amazing clouds

It was hot hot hot, and this was at 9am. Sunscreen applied, we set sail, stopping at a midday point to sit out the hottest part of the day (the heat was just too much), by the river Sekong where we grabbed some shade and zzz's. Was pretty nice - with the river so low we pretty much had our own private stretch of beach.

Our own private river beach where we kipped in the shade

Continuing a few hours later we came to a river at a village where we asked directions and we were pointed across the water. Figuring we had to cross we got a local lad to help us load the bikes onto the ferry (two small rafts nailed together with planks), and he towed us across on foot. We continued further through more villages and down some pretty off-road paths that clearly weren't designed for bikes - but what the hell - it was fun! Crossing another small stream we could drive though (slowly of course), and along some even more dangerous/fun jungle paths. Eventually we came to a river that seemed too wide, fast and deep to simply drive through. Asking a passer by he assured us we were on the right path, but we aired on the side of caution and decided to double back to teh last village and take an alternative route we thought we saw... It turned out to be a dead end and so we returned to the river again, covering the same arduous track for the third time, where we made the decision to take the bikes through the river ourselves. It took all three of us steadying one bike at a time, slowly pushing, pulling and lifting it over the river bed of slippery rocks, safely to the other side - to the amusement of more locals.

Pulling the bikes through the river - this one was a just a small one, so Lukas could afford to take pics :)

Driving on again, the path became increasing demanding, and after a while we were starting to wonder if we'd taken the correct route as laid out on our hand-drawn map from the hotel we rented one of the bikes - the most detailed we could find. Soon we were starting to loose light, and realising it was too late to turn back we had no choice but to press on. Asking for more directions at a village we passed through we knew we had minutes of light remaining and despite our best efforts found only another river (it was too unsafe to consider crossing in the dark) and several dead ends. Giving up we headed back to the village where we found the hut where some helpful people previously directed us, hoping to find a bed... No one spoke any English, but after a long game of charades we communicated that we were lost needed to rest. These lovely people found a hut where a wonderful family put us up for the night. They had to send their children to their friends, and we settled in for the night sleeping as the Laos villagers do - in a small wooden hut. They offered us some dinner of rice and fried minnows, that admittedly tasted a little of dirt, but we were more than thankful for it, and afraid of offending their hospitality. The village had extremely limited electricity - basically no lights, leaving the night sky to shine through lie I have never seen - the clear day left a cloudless night that with no light pollution allowed an array of stars to be visible I'd never experienced - really special.

The hut where we slept

We slept remarkably well, and arose with the rest of the village at 5:30, We looked around briefly before saying our goodbyes and expressing our gratitude by giving our hosts the money it would have otherwise cost us to stay in a hotel, then continued onwards.

Our gracious hosts for the night in the village

Following a very long 'conversation' trying to find out where on earth we actually were and which direction we should be traveling the night before, we discovered that we took a wrong turn, and should never have crossed on the ferry at the river some 80km back, and we were only 60km from the town we slept on the first night - Paksong (we were aiming for Pakse, and obviously not pronouncing it correctly when asking directions the whole day we were repeatedly being pointed in the wrong direction). We had to cross the river we decided was too dangerous in the dead of night. To reach our destination we had to climb the Blolaven Plateau - the mountain we'd spent our 5-day trip driving around, and the path started to become extremely steep, boulder ridden and much harder to drive, to cap it all our tanks were verging on empty, and the new dilemma became how far we could get before one of us simply ran dry...

Four more stream crossings later we reached the top of the plateau, and the terrain opened up into deforested farmland (makes sense being the only flat land for miles), where we saw trackers - that meant there was diesel fuel somewhere, and diesel often means petrol too. A few tens of kilometres more, and a few stops to ask where to find a top-up-point, we finally discovered a small stall selling fuel from bottles and purchased enough to get us where we needed to be. PHEW! We also bought some much needed drinks, and breakfast.

Lady selling fuel and snacks on the outskirts of the village on-top of the plateau

Another hour of driving and we reached the town we'd visited 4 days previous, at which point we thought we deserved a beer! Back on familiar ground we explored a waterfall we missed on the 1st day, where we fell asleep for at least 90 mins before grabbing some lunch, and then heading back to Pakse to get some accommodation. We had a few hours left before turning the bikes, and the weather was still great, so one last drive, north this time, before returning the motors, and taking a much needed shower. I also got another hair chop to match the boys.

Our biking adventure took this route - the red line showing where we went, and the green where we were supposed to continue on the 4th day :S Please excuse the crudely drawn map - resources here are limited :)

Today we were back on the road (bus this time) down south to a place where the river Mekong fans out into an inland delta creating 4000 islands at the border with Cambodia. Just a few hours on a minibus, and a short ferry crossing to the main island called Don Khong.

A satellite view of this region of Laos - the Mekong river fans out to create thousands of small islands

While here we intend to rent bikes (push bikes this time) and explore this the largest of the islands, and perhaps do a boat tour to see the rest - hopefully gonna see some Dolphins that inhabit these waters too. Here we hope to spend our last few days in Laos, before crossing into Cambodia, and starting a whole new adventure... More to come soon :)

More amazing pics from Lukas.

Day 57 - biking around S.E Laos

2008-02-26T13:13:00.002Z

Apologies for the lack of images this time, but the connection is too slow to allow us to upload much, simply posting text was really painful – will populate with more later, and hopefully have a a lot more to show next time :)

So last I wrote we were just waiting for our flight to Pakse in the South-East arm of Laos, leaving the North behind. Upon disembarking the 3 hour flight the wall of warm air form the more humid environment hit us like a slap in the face, and seconds later we were blasted by a light but warm rain shower. Wondering why we moved to a place the weather was fine to somewhere it was raining, we set about finding some accommodation in town. Once that as sorted, and we'd had a look at the town in the process, we decided to get the hell out of there asap (really not much to see/do), and fulfil our wish to hire bikes and do a couple of days touring the area. It wasn't easy finding bikes, but we each found a half decent machine from different sources, and booked them for 5 days.

Packing the minimal that we thought we needed to for that time into a plastic bag we bungeed to the back (no luggage racks this time), and stuffing the rest in the handy wire basket in the front, we set sail for a 5+ days adventure in this unexplored corner of the country. We had no idea what to expect, but were hoping to find more of we'd experienced off the beat'n'track up North – the real Laos village life.

The first day didn't get off to a great start. Lukas split to do his serious photo thing that would bore poor Peter and I to tears, and we went ahead in search of waterfalls. We found one that seemed pretty nice, but one of the smaller in the area. Was no one there but us, so was nice to have the freedom to roam and time to take some snaps.

Peter taking 'a moment' beside the falls – was quite a walk down :)

Pressing forward in search of the next, larger waterfall we came across a spot of bad weather. Seems the climate is much more volatile down here – being landlocked and extremely hot this time of year ,the isolated and plentiful large bodies of water (lakes and river) evaporate and rise of the dramatically shifting geography to create pockets of intense dry heat, followed by 'tropical'-heavy rainstorms that are usually short-lived. We happened to pass through one of these rainstorms, and got pretty wet. We pressed onto the town we were intending to stay in for the night, and arrived just in time to avoid a seriously heavy storm which we sat our with a couple of Beer Laos. We'd done our fare share of rain dodging for the day, so another quick drive while we had some sun, and then meeting Lukas for dinner, and n early night.

The next morning we all stuck together from the outset, and stared to go exploring off-road, down small dirt roads that were clearly not good for our motors, but fun to drive down. The weather was better, and the skies really started to look fantastic. Finding small village one by one, and waving at everyone we passed, eventually we came across a small village were music was bellowing from an open door, and locals were beckoning us in. After some persuasion they dragged us inside and started plying us with booze. From what we could gather, there was some festival to celebrate the plentiful harvest and to bless the coming year. They thrust Beer Laos into our hands and started putting glasses of Lao Lao Whiskey in our hands. They also began tying these cotton wristbands to our arms as a good luck charm for us I guess, blessing a drink at the same time you had to down. It was pretty fun, and they certainly enjoyed the experience as much as we did.

Saying our good byes, we continued on, finding village after village, waving to everyone as we went. Finally finding some accommodation in our next stop Sekong. Again the town wasn't much to look at, and basic resources such as restaurants were hard to find, as was a bank to withdrawn or change money, which was starting to run precariously low... Next morning ,up and back on the road again. Following a similar pattern, we explored every village that came our way, snapping everything picture-worthy we could find. Didn't get invited to any parties this time, but we caused quite a stir when we entered a local bar for a drink, attempting to converse with the local drunk men (seems to be most men around here), and showing them pictures of themselves which seems to hold no-end of fascination and enjoyment for them. One guy was so impressed we think he was trying to get us to send him a giant print-out for his wall, guess it beats a mirror?

Again to more accommodation and a hair cur for Lukas and Peter. In the internet café now (first we've seen in days, and the slowest we've every experienced). Updating what we've been up to before we head off for another couple of days exploring the area, before returning the bikes and continuing the journey by more conventional means again.

We really are enjoying having bikes again – it's not the same as having our own, and in some ways these new s (real) Honda's bikes aren't as good as our Chinese copies, probably because we're not willing to fix these one's up... But it's loads of fun, and when it doesn't rain (been lucky the post two days) the weather really can be glorious.

Having a great time, and more tales of the final days of biking to come shortly. TTFN

Day 53 - Luang Prabang and the surrounding area

2008-02-23T03:41:00.001Z

So we've been in Luang Prabang a good few days now. Our first duty was to do the touristy things inside the city itself, and as a newly formed foursome we set about exploring the cities temples, monasteries, hills and markets - plenty of all these things here! Crossed the Mekong river on a boat to check out more temples, a cave and a village, before returning back to the developed side of the river for some well-earned food and rest.

The view from the top of the towns central hill where there are great views and a collection of monuments and shrines. And monks.

Cute kids from the poor villages here - always wanting a chat (and looking for an opportunity to make some money), doing what they can to keep themselves occupied.

The next day our plan was to get a boat down-stream to visit the larger of the two waterfalls we'd heard good things about in our guide books and from travelers we'd talked to along the way. After some difficult haggling, and an unsuccessful search for additional bodies to bring the cost-per-head, we got out deal and set off in a pretty bendy (bendy through low-quality workmanship, not intension) boat. One hour later we reached the village where we were to catch a truck to the start of the waterfall complex.

A classic (older) village man, waiting and watching as we ascended the river bank to our ride. Great snap Lukas!

A 20 minute bumpy ride in the back of a pick-up later, and we at the entrance to the waterfall. On foot from here, we first walked through an animal sanctuary where a collection of bears and a tiger (the two species kept separately of course) who'd been rescued from cruel tourist-based treatment/captivity, and were being cared for, and restored to health. After which you walk on through to the first in a cascade of pools created by the stream. The scenery was pretty stunning, and the water a tone of blue I thought only existed in the movies - presumably created by minerals in the water, or algae from the various chunks of decaying tree that seemed to be scattered within. There were combinations of swimming areas (we didn't realise you could swim and so had no costume, plus it wasn't a particularly hot day) and naturally cascading levels of sky-blue water, surrounded by picturesque jungle.

Unnaturally blue pools of water from the falls further up ahead. I wish I'd bought my swim suit!

After a few hundred metres of pools and small cascades we approached the main attraction - the large waterfall, tumbling from a total hight of around 100m, which you could scale along a difficult path to reach the top and get a pretty good view. A few hours after our arrival we were back on our return journey. The river part took longer on the way back as we were moving upstream, and our boat ran out of petrol before we reached the town again. Our driver left on foot with a canister to fetch more for 30 minutes, giving us some time to take in the scenery whilst not moving, was pretty funny really.

The main waterfall.

Another meal later, this time joined also by a fellow Ozzy acquaintance of Mailey's from Vang Veing. We'd also spent time in the day booking ourselves onto the tour we'd talked about before - not our original vision of 4 days (became too expensive!), but a more compact, but equally exciting sounding 2 day trip that included mountain biking, elephant riding, trekking, villages and kayaking. All booked in the following morning we were up bright and early to start the adventure. Mailey wasn't joining us so we said our goodbyes at this point and she continued her journey to Hanoi in Vietnam.

It began by hoping on mountain bikes and heading out of town. Stopping by first at a temple, then a paper/parchment-making facility, we continued onto cycle along a pretty rough and hilly track, that didn't completely fulfill my visions of off-road biking, but was sure fun to burn down the steep slopes. After about 2 hours we reached the elephant village where we met our elephant. We hoped on-board a wooden bench mounted to her back, as the driver guided her around am hour long walk through the forest, kicking at her ears as commands and giving her a whack with a sharpened stick when she didn't obey. It was nice to be so close to an elephant, but as I shifted side-to-side as she took each step on the very relaxing journey I started to wonder if the continued domestication of these animals in any country is still appropriate, and if by contributing to the tourist trade use of elephants, I was in some small way making the plight of these majestic animals worse... Elephants have been domesticated in this part of the world for millennia, used as work-aids to help carry large loads (eg: logs from logging), farm, and generally get about. And the development of the countries as they obtain machinery to do such jobs for them means some elephants became an unnecessary financial burden, and were abandoned - there are tales of elephants begging for food in the streets of Bangkok. Tourism has given some of these unwanted animals a new purpose, but surely it would be better (although I'm sure very costly) to just reintroduce them into the wild where they belong, and leave them alone. Being so few in numbers today, and considering their levels of intelligence, this would make me feel better, especially as I learned the process of domestication kills 40% of young elephants they use, and consists of extreme starving and sleep deprivation methods to break their will to fight back. Sounds more like a concentration camp to me.

That's our girl on the left

After our ride we packed up for the trek which was to take us through villages, over rivers, and through some really incredible open plains of farmland, bush and forest. We walked up some pretty steep hills in what turned out to be the hottest day we'd experienced in over a month. A well earned break for lunch and a quick power-nap in a makeshift bamboo hut used for hunting were much appreciated!

One of a million amazing views experienced on the trek

The trek lasted about 3 hours in total. Once we reached the village we started to see how the majority of Laos people lived a dry dirt covered town with huts made from bamboo and weave - mostly on stilts. Children everywhere - most families have between 3-5 kids, and they are left to play in the village while the adults go out to work the land or practice their trade. We found our accommodation for the night - a home-stay shack run by a local family - and started to explore the town. It had everything you would expect; a school, animals roaming around, people preparing food and weaving straw, children playing, buildings going up, and all the time people coming to say hi, or pointing and talking at you from a distance. Taking photos is something of a sore point in this country - people generally don't like it, and it's impolite to do it without permission. A quick raise of the camera and a smile would usually provide you with a reassuring permissive nod, and as long as you show them the picture afterwards they are always keen to shoot more - they don't have mirrors so seeing themselves is a rare opportunity.

View as we entered the village

Our guide noticed a celebration in town - one hut was overcrowded with people with chatter and music coming from the open door. After enquiring he discovered there had been a wedding earlier in the day, and the celebrations were still continuing. He approached and asked if we could join in with the festivities - they were more than happy/drunk to include us. Upon entering we discovered the hut was packed with drunken Laos villagers of all ages, some playing a bamboo wind instrument, and a lady singing in tune to the music as others clapped. We sat crossed legged on the floor in what looked like the heavy drinkers corner. Pots lay about the floor with plastic (used to use bamboo) straws coming from the top, from which people were sucking back. It was Lao Jar Whiskey - fermenting sticky rice in a jar, to which you continuously add fresh water to the top, as it filtrates down you suck from the bottom. The tubes were shoved in our hands and they made us start necking this stuff as they filled from the top. It was great! Really sweet taste, with little alcohol in the flavour, but plenty of effects in the head. It's apparently 30%, and from the effects I wouldn't be surprised... We also met the town chief, who likely had many wives, who was pleased to welcome us to his village - one they are turning into a regular on the eco-tourism map. They were also passing around some snacks of sticky rice, and boiled pigs lung and liver - it's rude to refuse so we politely chewed as little as possible and swallowed the organs :S

Peter and I sucking down the jar-whiskey with the locals from the wedding party - what fun!

A few hours later, and few stories and songs sung about us, we'd left the party and sat down for dinner. Other foreigners had purchased similar packages, and had ended up at the village also. We shared our meal and evening continuing to drink with a Canadian, a French-Canadian, a German, and a guy from Holland - all really friendly. Off to our huts for a sleep under the mosquito net, then up for breakfast the next morning. Day two consisted of a easier trek along a maintained path down through a few small villages, across some streams, and down to the river where we were to start kayaking. The river was pretty easy, and only contained a few small rapids. We got stuck on a rock once, but after that it was clear sailing all the way to the point where we disembarked, and got drove back to our hotel. All in all it was a pretty cool experience, of which the highlight was definitely the village and experiencing the wedding party. The two days was only attended by Peter and myself. Lukas felt he wanted some serious photo time, and fancied exploring just villages on his own, rather than doing the activities. So he hired a guy with a bike, and spent his time traveling from village to village experiencing similar things to us, but in a more photo-opportunity creating context. He really did take some amazing pics, and he was much happier for it. So we met back up with him in town for what would be our last night in Luang Prabang. The following morning - this morning - we're booked on a flight to the south of the country, to a place called Pakse. Sat in the airport now killing some time as our flight is delayed a few hours. Our flight will take us on this updated-visual journey progress path.

Jon's-eye view kayaking along the river

Once there we hope to rent motorbikes again, and do a couple of day circuit around a network of roads - exploring the towns and villages in the south of the country before continuing on down into Cambodia.

Until next time.

Day 46 - Laos is a calling

2008-02-18T14:41:00.002Z

Firstly, apologies for the length of the last post - I did ramble on a bit, but I had nearly two weeks of activity to document - we'd been busy :)

So we've left the freezing cold north of Vietnam, sold the bikes and used to dosh to fund a flight into Vientaine - the capital of Laos. The Vietnam leg of our the journey has come to an end, and the whole path we took from bottom to top can be seen here in the final visual journey-progress update map. We made the cross-country journey in a small Airbus 2-engine propeller plane that took just under 2 hours. The airport is just outside the capital, a quick taxi ride later and we were in the centre of the hotel district.

We read it can get busy in the peak season (now), but we had no idea it would be so hard to find accommodation. We tried a few hotels at first - all full. Lukas stayed with our bags and a beer, while Peter and I continued hunting - still no room, then I continued on my own. After nearly 2 hours I'd tried over 30 hotels, only 3 had room, and only one was (just) in our price range, and clean enough to consider spending and time sleeping there. So decision made, we checked in grabbed some grub and hit the sack.

The weather is sooo much nicer here - it's mid-high twenties, still a little overcast, but we can stop wearing two jumpers and a jacket to go outside. The shorts have been promoted up from the bottom of the backpack, and the jumpers relogated back down to the bottom where they belong! The city itself it pretty small, and there's not an awful lot to do here - quite a few silver-tourists around, which says it all really. So we started exploring our options for travel out of the city, and off into the countryside where we would see the countries real beauty. Luang Prabang in the north is a place we all agreed we would like to have a real good root around, but it's all very remote and isolated - we would need help, and the only morally sound way to do it here is through an eco-tourisim group. We found a major one in town and started researching options. We've spotted a 4-day tour we like the sound of, doing a combination of trekking, rafting and mountain biking through national parkland, but there was another place we wanted to check out en-route first; Vang Vieng. So after a day of exploring the city on knackered old girly pushbikes we'd rented for the day (loads of fun!), we were booked on a bus to head 180km north.

Locking up our girly bikes outside a riverside drinking hole

Laos certainly has some beautiful scenery, and we were sorely missing our bikes and experiencing the freedom (and speed - this was one slow-ass bus!) we'd grown accustomed to. Got ourselves accommodated in Vang Vieng , and instantly we could see what the guidebook meant about this being a backpackers haven - this town only exist because of backpackers, and all businesses here are geared to the travelling way of life. It's a rel party town with bars and restaurants pumping out music, or airing endless episodes of friends from DVD boxsets, as the hungover tourists all lie down on giant cushions transfixed to the tone of those familiar 6 voices. Our first evening there consisted of going to an island where there are 4 large open bars with bonfires and cheap BeerLao (the rather nice local beer that come in giant 640ml bottles), and travellers drink in their hundreds - a nice place to meet new people and share stories an tips for places visited.Brand new visual-journey progress map for Laos.

There are many caves in the surrounding area along a small river that are ripe for exploring. We wanted to do it on our own having been relatively independent so far, so rented more bikes - this time mountain bikes - and they were really really crap! Lukas went off doing his photography thing while Peter and I tried finding these caves. Found a couple that extend a few kilometers into the mountainside, but they were pretty straight, and not overly interesting. A cave we tried later was much better with loads of compartments and giant opening to root around in. You pay and entrance fee and are handed a torch, as they are completely pitch-black inside.

Inside the coolest cave - jet black wit only a lame flashlight to look around. And no one else for miles - we had them all to ourselves! Great fun!

Stopping for beers along the way, we met Lukas later in the evening, and decided to extend our stay another day to partake in the tubing everyone we met raved about. Particularly this Ozzy guy who we met in the evening who was pissed off his head, who we later discovered was returning home to Oz after living in Bournemouth and working in Walkabout there for two years - small world! I also met a fellow Bournemouth-ian later that night too - Bizarre!

Sipping down Lao-Lao (local rice-whiskey) cocktails from buckets - classy!

Tubing the next day started just after lunch, you pay your dosh, get given a giant rubber ring, and get carted 3km up stream to the drop point. Quick cocktail at the bar before getting wet, and you just jump in and let the current take you downstream. After 50m we were drinking beers on the bamboo-made bar of the first drinking hole of many en-route. There are hundred of people just floating along, with rope swings and zip-lines into the water that we were all having fun using. 6/7 hours, and countless BeerLao's later we'd run our of light and made it back to shore.

Tubing down the river, slowly being puled along, with the sun on your back, magnificent scenery, and a beer in your hand - we loved it! More images of us getting pissed up.

Next morning we had pretty monster hangovers, but had to sport them all day no another bus journey - which today took us to Luang Probang, a further 200+km further north. Updated visual-progress map. Again - scenery was breathtaking - as we drove around massive mountains, and through tiny village communities. I had a pretty rough time on-board, with a bout of travel sickness not helped by the remnants of the night before swishing around my stomach the whole way. But about 6/7 hours later we made it. Met a nice Australian girl, Mailey, on the minibus, and after sharing a ride into town together, we all found a hotel, and are sharing 2 rooms to help spread the cost. Tomorrow we intend to do the sights of the town, and book ourselves in for the next tour - probably some waterfalls in the area first, then the big 4-day adventure. After which,.. who knows?

Generally Laos has been a pleasant experience so far. It's very different to Vietnam. Everything in Laos seems to happen at a much slower pace. There are a lot less people here, and the majority of the population live in villages, not cities, and everything is just more rural. The people as a race are slightly different too - usually taller and broader with slightly redder skin, and different shaped faces. The building styles are different too, and conditions are generally much more basic - running water is by no means everywhere, but satellite TV seems to be, with many small wooden shacks sporting a 3m dish in the front garden. There is less traffic on the roads - most of the traffic is actually made up of cars here, not bikes, and no seems in a rush to get anywhere - politely waiting behind slower vehicles until tit's safe and clear to overtake - no horns!

The food has been better in my opinion, but we've only really been in touristy places so far.. expecting food quality to deteriorate rapidly once we start getting rural. But I don't think they eat dog here, so fingers crossed - no more nasty surprises when blindly ordering, if indeed there's even a choice.

That's it for today, but more to follow shortly ;) Over half-way through our time away already! So better get a move on - lots still to see! TTFN.

More fantastic images by Lukas as usual.

Day 44 - Hanoi, the North, and the end of an era.

2008-02-13T06:45:00.000Z

Firstly, Lukas's arm is fine now. He was taking the antibiotics for a few days and it cleared right up - just a scab remains, and his arm has deflated back to a more ordinary size. We're very relieved about that! :) In the last post we had just arrived the countries capital - Hanoi. After much hunting around for a reasonably priced, decent hotel, we eventually found somewhere in the old-quarter down a quiet street, a few doors away from the city's main hostel, with a handy internet cafe opposite (always full of shouting, smelly young children), and a decent pizza restaurant around the corner that we frequented a few too many times in our days here. In total we spent 5 days in Hanoi, enjoying being back in a city, and experiencing the freedom of having choices of places to eat, drink, and shop once again - something you don't realise you miss until you have those luxuries back once again. We bought things like decent driving gloves, scarfs, a few extra layers of clothing, and replacement socks (pairs seem to go missing when we get laundry done?).

Our Vietnamese friend Lan (one of the girls we met on the boat trip in Nha Trang) happened to be in the city at the same time visiting family and friends over the festive period, so we spent some time with her looking around, shopping, eating, and helped us get some things sorted, like buying playing cards - something we found unusually difficult to do here. Also did some night-time exploration of bars and restaurants, taking some pictures of the city and lake illuminated at night.

The lake at night illuminated like the bat-signal, lights beam from the tortoise monument situated at the lakes centre

We spent a lot of time exploring the city on foot (driving in the traffic here was a little overwealming at first). Lukas and myself especially enjoyed roaming the street of the inner-city residential districts in the north - down narrow alleys, and winding streets, seeing how the people who lived here really lived. Being the start of the holiday season, children were not at school, and many people had finished work, so there was plenty of activity to observe. There was a real mixed bag of accommodation, anything from crumbling shacks, to near-mansions can exist on one street, and the variance in building height differs greatly from one building to the next. The most interesting stuff was seeing the people interact with each other and with their local environment - everything from buying goods, to chilling in a roadside bar, washing clothes, to taking out the trash to the meandering bin-man. We also passed through endless markets where we saw the usual array of S.E.Asian vegetables on offer, and the meat stalls with cuts arranged openly on the street ready to be cut to requirement. We also saw a level of meat preparation we had not seen before in the more urban marketplaces. Chickens still alive, crammed into small steel of wooden cages. From these you select your bird, which is then placed upside down in a large cone, it head sticking out of the small-end. Then its throat is cut, and is left to slowly bleed dry. Once empty the bird is plucked, and then cleavered to your specification. A far cry from selecting a prepared bird nearly wrapped in plastic from a supermarket shelf!

Chickens being bled dry, plucked, and washed for sale. You pick one and watch as they prepare your meat from being alive, to being ready to cook. Spared you the really gory one here - it's quite messy. Sorry vegetarians out there :)

We also saw the beginnings of the dinner we wish we never ate - dog meat :S Whole dog carcass that had been cooked, ready for selecting your cut, and dog heads to the side (assume they eat parts of this too?) with the teeth snarling back at you as the cooked flesh has pealed back from the skull, and simultaneously pet dogs roaming around the streets and being played with by children... a confusing level of contrast between pet and food. We have heard from people we've met crossing the Laos-Vietnam border, that you see trucks filled with dogs leaving Laos, destined for Vietnam - perhaps they only eat imported dog, and keep their home-bred varieties for pets...? Who knows. It just seems so different to the level of separation we're used to at home.

Dog meat stall in the residential street markets

We attempted to see a few tourist sights such as monuments and museums, but because of the approaching new years - everything was gearing down and either closing early, or was not open at all - but we wanted to spend the new years here to see how the Vietnamese celebrate it in their capital city. It was a little annoying, but we got to see parts of the city we might not have otherwise ventured into, and it gave us an opportunity to do some fun photography. Photography such as chasing these bikes carrying mini-orange trees around, apparently good luck to have in the home around new years - you couldn't look at a street without seeing a handful in your field of vision - they were everywhere! And the trees came in all shapes and sizes. Some bikes were grossly overloaded with the weight of these things, and we witnessed some funny moments where people were trying to secure them to their vehicles.

The bikes we were chasing around the city, trying to get the perfect shot. They really were everywhere!

New-years eve we went down to the lake in the old-quarter, where it seemed most of the city congregated to watch the fire works displays. It was really crowded, which was good as the penguin effect started to kick in and keep us warm enough to sit comfortably outside. As midnight came, the fireworks began (no countdown here), 15 minutes of big bangs, and pretty lights, finishing in a crescendo of colour, accompanied by 'oooooo's' of impressed on-lookers. Once the fireworks ended everyone instantly stood up, turned and bolted, attempting to avoid the inevitable gridlock that ensued.

Fireworks from the lake

We walked around the 3 major lakes here, through the parks, used taxi's, drove our bikes and walked through most of the districts. Never have we come to know a place we have stayed quite so well on our journey. Also there was the question of what to do with the bikes... We were really leaning towards wanting to just continue our journey on them into Laos, and continue all the way through Cambodia, Thailand, and back to Ho Chi Minh in the south of Vietnam for our flight home in April. But the border was a long way to go with no guarantees we could cross, meaning loosing a few days traveling to get somewhere we could sell them again, or if we got desperate enough - simply ditch them. So I grabbed my passport and went to visit the British Embassy for some advice. It was not good news. After some phoning around the border control people, they discovered it is technically possible to cross the border on a bike as a foreigner, but it would require more paperwork that we had time to do, which included getting our own Vietnamese driving licences for bikes and would also involve cooperation from the guys we originally bought them from down in Mu-Ni. Our hearts were broken :( Defiant as ever we thought we might just risk it, try and blag our way through the border control - say 'we rented them and were told we could continue our journey across the border'. Either way we had a journey still to make - heading 140km east to the coast, to a place called Halong bay.

Satellite view of the Gulf of Tonkin - Halong Bay, and it's 3000+ islands

Here we were to find some unique geographical features created when the sea levels were much higher, leaving 3000 or more incredible islands rising from the sea. The idea sounded great, and there are countless tours run from Hanoi city on a bus, but after checking the weather, and seeing no rain (only cold temperatures below 10 degrees C), we decided to drive again, stay overnight in Halong city on the coast and book our own tour boat when we arrived. The drive took longer than expected, and it was cold! We were starting to get tired of this shit weather, and longed for the days we wore t-shirts and shorts, caked in sunscreen, and had to stop driving in the middle of the days because it was too hot... We arrived in Halong city, and decided against trying to make it Cat Ba island (the largest island of the group, and the only one containing hotels), as it was getting dark (we'd slept in a little, and check out pretty late). Updated visual-journey progress. Finding a hotel was similar to our usual routine; start somewhere that look nice - too expensive, try every hotel in the area, find a reasonable room for a reasonable price, then haggle them down a little. Got a decent one in the end - the tallest we'd been in yet - 10 stories, and we were on the 8th floor, thank god there was an elevator this time :) Had the air-con unit yet - could pump out some serious heat, which was badly needed after our freezing journey there. We then got some grub and crashed out. The city itself it a bit grim - nothing to really do except go on tours, which is why most people do package tours direct from Hanoi. As the guidebook correctly states, 'Halong bay is the attraction, Halong city is not'. Waking the following morning we were going to drive to the dock where the boats depart, find out some info on the options available and to get ourselves a good deal. Got on the bikes that were outside the hotel (they always bring them inside for the bulk of the night), and Peter couldn't get his key in the bike... Turns out some little bastard had tried stealing it. They'd jammed a screwdriver into the ignition and snapped the main rod that the key activates and you turn to start the bike up. Bugger! Peter was not happy at all. It was also still TET (Vietnamese new years) holidays. Nowhere was open. So he proceeded to take his bodywork apart to get to the problem to see if it could be fixed. It could not. And the hotel people (who rightly felt a little guilty having not seen this crime take place right outside the completely glass fronted building), got a garage down the road to open especially and have a look. Peter's ignition is not a standard part, and the only ignition blocks they had didn't work in his bike, despite 2 hours of trying to wire them up without success. In the end they had to hard-wire the bike 'on', and to turn it off he has to unscrew the front panel, and manually unplug the electric block that connects the ignition to the rest of the bike. Peter was even more unhappy. 'He was pissed' just doesn't cut-it.

In the meantime, Lukas and myself made use of this time to research the options and costs of a tour - the only reason we'd come here. We'd need to book for the following day, as Peter's bike mishap and a little internet time took up most of our time... We had booked a tour that started at midday the following day, on a boat with groups of other tourists. The guy we booked from offered us 2 rooms (as you can only fit two people per room), for which we paid extra, and played a few games of cards to decide who get the luxury of their own space. We were also told by the guy that beer was $1 (16,000 dong), and we could bring our own booze on-board with no complications (both conditions identical to the boat trip we took in Nha Trang), so we took him for his word and handed over the cash for a 2 day, 1 night tour. The next day we checked out of the hotel, parked up at the docks, and boarded our tour boat. One we started to move, the tour guide lady on the boat told us that we now had to share our second room with a stranger. This didn't really bother us that much in principal, but we paid extra cash to have the second room for one person (paid the price for 2 people, to get 1 room as a luxury), so we obviously wanted the difference refunded. She wouldn't give it to us, and said we had to get it from the guy (the agent) who we bought the tickets from. We weren't sure we'd ever see him again, and started to kick up a bit of a fuss... We had to share otherwise this poor guy would have nowhere to sleep, but they purposely overbooked the boat to get as much money as possible from it. We'd already paid the fee for the extra space. This made us unhappy. Then we find out the beer on board the boat is double what we were promised, we became even unhappier. At our first stop we looked around some caves, which to be fair were pretty spectacular, but were ruined by some really crass lighting - it looked so Disney due to the array of colours used, you'd think you were in a Star Trek set, on another planet and Kirk would jump from behind an stalegtite at any moment.

Disney caves - spectacular, but lit up like a Christmas tree

On the islands there were the usual tourist shops, some selling beer for 13,000 (90 cents). So we bought a round of beers, and grabbed some waters for the night. When we arrived back on the boat they shoved a printed notice in our face telling us we had to pay a 15,000 dong cover charge for every can of drink we bought on board - another broken promise form the agent who sold us the tickets. We were furious, and outright refused to pay anything. We bought a couple of more beers onshore in protest, and started drinking them. Once we were back on the water, the guide sat down with us and tried convincing us to pay to charge. We refused, and a full-on argument broke out. We caused quite a scene, and Lukas and Peter were really shouting at the girl. I the end she asked to speak to just one person as we were all shouting, so me being the calmest/most-English, became the mediator, and put our case across. In tern she communicated back into Vietnamese to the captain, who was a real hot-head. They just weren't getting it. The guy they employ to sell tickets lied to us. We bough them on a set of conditions that were explained to us. They moved the goal posts and expect us to pay more money than we intended. There was no way were budging. It was simply the last straw, 3 pretty big lies, that cost us money on each occasion. It wasn't the money, it was the principal of just being lied to so much, we were disgusted with their behaviour - it's just not the way to do business, not in any country. Combined with Peter's bike, and the amount of lying we'd experienced at our expense in the country so far, we just snapped. They wouldn't budge either, and eventually treathened us with our passports (you have to hand them over everywhere you sleep for visa reasons, the boat was still a hotel effectively). We didn't care, and demanded to have police waiting at the shore when we docked to sort it out. We stopped drinking the beer we bought on-board to not further agitate the situation, and drank their beers instead, clocking up a pretty sizable bill. We drank our own drinks in our room at night while playing cards (also prohibited by their rules). The sight seeing wasn't great either. Although it was not raining, it was cloudy, and visibility was restricted to a few kilometers, so the beauty of the bay was mostly masked by mist. Was turning out to be a nightmare trip, and we began to regret ever leaving Hanoi.

About as good-a-view as we could get, given the weather conditions

In the end they magically produced another spare room for the other guy to stay in, and we got our room that we paid for to ourselves. Which made things a little better, and the trip improved after a spot of cyacking around a bay area, that allowed us to go exploring some of the caves large enough to enter at the waters edge. Some were quite large and we ventured in at least 10 metres, well at least far enough until we couldn't see a thing, got scared and started back padeling. It was quite tranquil, and pretty fun. That and the two ozzy girls we met on board whom we shared a few cards games with were the saving grace of the experience, and made us start to think, perhaps it was worth doing after all... maybe.

Peter and myself cyacking around the bay - was really quite pleasant and turned our lifted our spirits a little after the experience on the boat so far

Midday and we docked back at the port, and we paid the price for the beers we drank, but not the service charge on our own drinks, They then handed our passports over without saying a word. We'd won, back of the net! :) We're glad it didn't get out of hand again. So we refueled, loaded up the bikes and hit the road again. We were all ill by now from all the driving in the cold weather, and the boat trip was the nail in the coffin - temperatures were sooooo low we all came down with nasty colds. Mine seemed to be pretty bad, and I felt like I had the flu all the way back - my whole body ached, and was having some hot & cold flushes. The ride wasn't pleasant. On the way back I broke the chain on the pony - it just gave in and flew off. Had to push it (backwards - wouldn't go forwards as the chain was jammed) to a nearby garage that was shut due to the holiday. After some sad-face-pulling they agreed to open for us and see what they could do. No part shops were open, so this small garage had to mend the broken link, rather than replace the whole thing, which took a while, and once finished was only a temporary measure. I couldn't accelerate or down-shift fast- everything had to be gradual and slow, or the chain would simply break again, but she made it all the way back.

Pony having a brand new chain fitted later in Hanoi

We were all cold, ill, tired, and aching. We decided that's enough. We were planning to to go to Sapa in the north of the country, but with this crap weather it was pointless, as it's all about scenery up there, and so we agreed to sell the bikes back in Hanoi, and use the money to fund buying some plane tickets to somewhere warmer. The signs were telling us it's time to give them up. If we kept them our distance per day would be limited, and staying north would mean more cold, and we'd had over 3 weeks of naff weather since leaving the south, and we yerned for warmer climates. We checked ourselves back into the same hotel we were in several days before, and set about fixing the bikes up for sale. I got a brand new chain fitted and spark plug, Lukas's was okay, and Peters we couldn't fix due to the unavailability of the part until the stores reopened fully in a few days time. We also gave the bikes a proper cleaning - 50p to have 3 people slaving over the cleaning of a bike for 20 minutes. Same as a can of coke over here.

Pony getting the cleaning of a lifetime

We composed an advertisement, and thanks to some brilliantly rendered hand-typography by myself, and some spot on distribution by Lukas around town, we had a couple fo phonecalls within hours. We were aiming at selling to other travellers, and not wanting to rip anyone off, and needing a fast sale, we set the price at $200 a piece - trying to sell them as a trio, but willing to split if neccessary.

The ad we photocopied and posted around town

The viewings went well. The first couple to look were only interested in one bike, and low and behold they preferred the Pony! She was very flattered. Quick fix and a wash, and she was good as new, and the most attractive again :). But the first phone call we received was from a pair of American travellers, who wanted 2 bikes, and we would rather shift 2 at once and deal with the 3rd separately. After another successful viewing, the Pony trumped the others again, and thankfully we convinced them (or rather they convinced themselves after test driving) that Peters bike with the broken ignition was the better buy - it really is the best bike of the three, we just didn't have the time to hang around for the part and get it fixed. It still worked, you just have to unscrew a panel to get it going first. And so we were glad the people who'd be travelling had the two best bikes to help them get there. They wanted to sleep on it, but they seemed really keen on the idea. Reserving those two bikes for them, we went back to the German couple who were living here, and informed them Lukas' bike remained if they wanted it. And they decided to take it. Nothing wrong with it, was in good shape, just the one least suited to longer distances, as her top speed was only around 70kmph. So one sold, and another deal to seal in the morning. We went out and blew a silly amount of money on some French red, followed by some beers, and a decent meal. The next morning our heads ached, but awoke to receive a call from the young Americans, Al & Aliah; sealed! They wanted the bikes. Best way to start a day - with good news. We were thrilled the bikes would be doing our journey in reverse, and continuing to carry fellow travellers across this great land. So we had our last day with them, bought flights to Vientaine, Laos, with the money for the following day, signed over the bikes and then went for dinner with our bikes new owners to share travelling tips. We told them of the route we took - best route to use, and good places to stop off en-route, and in-tern they shared their experiences they'd already had in Laos, and highlighted a few things we should try and do as our journey continues. It was quite an emotional experience parting with the motors, and I had to take the pony for one last spin around town before handing her over. The experience was so different to when I first tried driving her, all her quirks i'd learnt to cope with and use to my advantage, I was a good driver now, and we'd spent enough time in the city to have a really good drive around in traffic, and be more than confident of my surroundings, and location. It was a good last drive, and I felt sad letting her go. I will miss that old bike.

Lukas saying good bye to his Ruzenka

That brings us bang up to date. Just checked out of the hotel and waiting for the Taxi to take us to the airport, then onto Laos, and more adventures in teh second country in our journey. Until next time.

More photos from Lukas as usual.

Day 34 – Driving in Vietnam; the art of staying alive

2008-02-03T11:06:00.000Z

So the last blog post was quite long, but there were still a few things I forgot to put in... Apologies again for writing a lot, but the rainy days and nights give us little to do, so I sit writing these things to alleviate boredom, then publish when I can get a connection :)

Firstly, I got myself a suit made in Hoi An! A brand new tailored shiny suit (my first ever!), made from cashmere wool in dark grey, fits like a charm – they made it in 7 hours, and I tried it on the very next day. Looks smashing. Getting it posted home. 30 quid! Bargin!

Secondly the computers we were using in our hotel were really bad, and infected with a virus that caused the machines to mess up enough that I lost all my media on my iPod (so now it's useless until I return home and update it again), and Lukas lost a few hours work resizing images and typing his blog. We managed to blow one of the machines up completely (something we seems to manage almost everywhere we go), and the rest made us so frustrated we almost threw them into the street. They're mostly around 8 years old, and the connection speeds slow here, so it can be a little painful and frustrating at times... How did we used to cope? ;)

The bikes were in need of fixing up a little again too. The hungry pony needed new rear brakes (I'd worn them down to the metal so they no longer worked without locking like a handbrake), Peter got his brakes done too and Lukas needed some wiring to make his headlights work. Once all this was done we felt safe enough to hit the road again.

Back to driving...

Now that we've covered nearly 2,500km since buying the bikes (including the everyday use and getting lost a lot, not just our journey-progress) I wanted to take this opportunity to write a little about the roads over here, and what an experience it is to drive on them.

You drive on the right over here. The first rule is size matters. The second rule is, there are no more rules...! The only kind of priority on the roads is one of scale: I'm bigger than you so get out of my way or I'll squash you. That's it. Everything else is just survival of the most aware. And considering how aware you need to be to stay alive, its amazing to see most divers not looking around them or using their mirrors.

The traffic on the roads consists of:
90% motorbikes (most of which are 100cc or smaller) and bicycles
5% HGV's, trucks, buses & coaches
4.5% assorted vans
0.5% cars
The roads are not limited to vechicles. You'll also encounter some people on foot, and every type of animal imaginable including chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, pigs, cows, and oxen.

Whizzing past cows freely roaming on the road

Families of goats often appear on the more mountainous roads

A bike very rarely has just one person on-board. Its much more common to see at least 2 people, and we've seen as many as 5 (a whole family!). Even when there's 2 people, the one at the back if often carrying something rediculously large, like a large plate glass window.

Family (of 4) on bikes

Some bikes are loaded with furniture, or have tens of ducks or chickens fastened (still alive and quacking/clucking) by their feet, likely destined for some market. We've seen bikes with at least 6 goats (hopefully dead) tied to them, doing 60kph down the motorway! Adn the other day a bike with 2 large pigs (still alive) strapped upside down to the back. You even see mothers with a new born baby cradled in one arm, driving the bike with the other. Push bikes are often used to move large amounts if materials around, and when the load gets too large to move under man power, just use a motorbike to push it along the street.

Man on bike with chickens

As you approach any junction you encounter you always need to be aware and slow down as with no priority given to traffic going in any particular direction, you get this cross-hatching effect where the bikes weave in and out of each other trying to avoid an impact. Any vehicle turning onto one road from another never stops to check if its clear... Instead, without even looking, the driver swerves onto to road, expecting drivers already in the flow of traffic to avoid them. If you are currently being overtaken by someone on your left this often gives you no choice but to slam on your brakes and hope to avoid a collision. Drivers crossing traffic don't stop either, they simply drive right at oncoming traffic (sometimes for hundreds of metres) until they see an opportunity to swerve onto the correct side of the road. There are traffic lights at a few major junctions in larger cities, but the red signal still doesn't stop a lot of people. There is this nifty countdown timer telling you how much time remains on the current colour, but nearly all use this as a way to skip the lights prematurely.

Indication when turning is not seen as a necessity and drivers often swerve wildly across traffic to make their turning. Seeing someone slow down is often all the indication you get. Most bikes don't have working indicators, some drive at night with no working lights, and nearly every bike has no juice in the battery - requiring the bike to be kick-started to get things going (including ours).

Cars, being larger, can do whatever they wish, and often block roads with maneuvers forcing all traffic to grind to a halt. You can even see coaches doing a three-point-turn on a motorway!

There are 3 main types of environment to drive in, the most manic of which are cities. The centre of any city is always really busy, and gets worse at rush hours. You're usually sharing your immediate personal space around the bike with 4/5 others. If you're brave enough to walk you usually find yourself relegated to the gutter as pavements are often coated in stuff from shops or more bikes parked up. They have zebra-crossings here with a sign and everything telling drivers to be aware of pedestrians, but pedestrians are smaller than bikes so the bikes just plough on through.

Average volume of traffic in Siagon at junction

Motorways are a real mixed bag. At times they can be flat, dull, and rammed with coaches and large slow moving trucks filled with some raw material. Often covered in dust, dirt or sand, you get filthy whether it's wet or dry. Other times the traffic clears, you have the roads to yourself and the drive and quality of scenery just blows you away (usually the highland roads). Wherever you are there's always random animals to avoid, wandering across the road without a care in the world. Sometimes entire herds are ushered down the road for kilometres by children with sticks, likely moving them from one grazing site to the next. Others just seem to be wondering freely. We saw a pretty horrific accident where a bus had just collided with a bull. The front of the bus was pretty smashed up and bits of it were scattered across the road. The poor bull looked paralysed, only able to move its head. Sat on the middle of the motorway with a petrified look of pain in its eyes, wanting to crawl away and die on its own somewhere. Instead waiting while crowds gathered, probably only a few minutes before someone came along to put it out of its misery. We were guided past with the rest of the traffic. Was pretty sad thing to see, but inevitable with the road conditions out here.

One example of some stunning scenery passed along the journey

The final type of roads consists of everything else; smaller roads outside cities that range from anything from a half decent tarmac road that comfortably fits a lane of traffic in both directions, to a mud path that is so wrecked you struggle to get out of first gear. These can be the most fun to drive along, but are always to slowest!

No road - just mud path

The road conditions I think I've mentioned before - they really are pretty bad, but steadily improving as we travel north. Avoiding potholes has become so commonplace, that I'm thinking of turning pro. Road works and giant sections of missing tarmac, that appear to have been extracted from the earth by UFO's, are just the way things are here - always in need of repair, and you just have to pay attention to where you're going more.

All in all, compared to the driving experiences we're used to at home - it's vastly different here. But somehow, despite all the additional dangers, and carelessness of the drivers on the roads - the people here make it work. There are more accidents yes, and we've seen the aftermath of many on our travels (mostly flipped trucks forced off the roads by buses overtaking other large vehicles at 100 around blind corners), but the cow is the only casualty we've witnessed. Cities you have to drive slower due to congestion, and although impacts are frequent they are at such low speeds that it's almost impossible to get hurt. As lawless and crazy as it seems to us, they make it work, and because of the additional dangers that exist here, in some respects, I'd say most drivers are better than back home. And apart from the bad weather, there hasn't been a second of the experience of driving here with our own bikes we haven't really enjoyed. I'm so glad we decided to see the country this way - it's made such a difference, and given us so much more freedom than if we'd simply used coaches to jump from A to B.

Continuing with our journey

So we made it to Hue with no problems, and our updated visual-journey plan, can be seen here.

It was another lovely journey (started off a little wet, but improved as we progressed) where we traveled north along the coast, past glorious looking beaches (well they would be if the sun was out), sleepy towns where everyone waves and shouts hi as you pass, and mountain ranges that lift you up into the clouds (it's cold in those things!). We had a lot of fun on this journey!

A friendly cloud stops by to say hello as we drive through it, ascending up into the mountains

Hue was a lovely place - really old city right in the centre of the country - near the DMZ (demilitarised zone) that split the country in two along the river Ben Hai. Unfortunately for us the weather didn't improve, it got worse. The rain continued to fall, and the sun didn't come out at all. It was pretty miserable - visibility was severely restricted due to the constant drizzle, and it severely impacted our sight-seeing and travel plans. Luckily for us there was plenty to do in walking distance, and the restaurants around our hotel were really nice, so we were well fed, and occupied enough for our 2 days there. While there we explored some ancient tombs of Emperors of old, and the large citadel in the city centre; surrounded by a 10m thick wall that encompasses the old-town, with an inner citadel that used to be the residence of an emperor about 200 years ago - ruins are all that remains now, some badly restored sections and buildings, and a tennis court? Both excursions were more examples of poor restoration and care-taking of the countries historical treasures. Pictures sucked a little due to the weather, but it was good to be out and doing things.

Inside the wet citadel - sprawling acres of ruins, temples, and dwellings of the Emperor

After a look at the weather forecast - it seemed a little bleak - temperatures were falling, and there was no end in sight to the never ending rain. We had to keep moving, we had a long distance to travel to reach Hanoi (the countries capital in the north), and so did some shopping to buy a couple of rain macks - well more like colourful capes that all the locals seemed to wear to protect themselves while driving in the rain. Proud of our new purchases, and convinced they'd help protect us from the elements, we rested in temperatures cold enough enough to see your own breath (this is inside our hotel room!), packed up and set sail again. As predicted it continued to rain pretty consistently, and our new waterproof attire seemed to be doing it's job - only the bottom of our legs were getting wet (these things are full-length on Vietnamese people, but just cover our knees) - a vast improvement!

After a few tens of kilometres, the toll of the pounding rain and strong winds started to show on our capes. They simple started to fall apart and the rain started to leak into the newly made tears... It was pretty funny really. Lukas's was clearly the worst. By the half-way point he looked like he'd gone ten rounds with a tiger - his cape was completely ripped to shreds. I was laughing for at least half an hour driving behind him as pieces tore off and flew past my head at 60kmph. Hilarious! Our optimistic target for the day was over 200km away, and the conditions after 3/4 hours started got worse, and really started to get us down, it quickly became unbearable again. We had no choice but to stop at a town called Dong Hoi - a small midway town where they're definitely not used to seeing tourists, and there was very little to do except wander the streets. We made the focus of our time there finding new waterproof capes - better ones! We also bought some gloves to protect our hands from the bitter winds, that weren't water proof at all, and died our hands purple. And after a sprint around the local market, we found what seemed to be much better jackets. A dinner, sleep and breakfast later, we were back on the road with our improved jackets. We stayed drier, and the jackets stayed in one piece - it made things a lot more bearable.

Lukas' rain mack after a frew hours of wind and rain - the back looked much worse! :)

Again we drove as long as long as we could bear in the rain, to the next stop-over, a place called Ha Tinh; again nothing to really do except check in, get a taxi to a mediocre restaurant, go to bed and prepare for more of the same as our journey would continue the next morning... After another soaking experience we made it to the next big city - Vinh. Updated visual journey progress.

Vinh was another town not used to tourists, and finding a hotel was as difficult as ever. Once settled, we sat down and decided that there simply was no way we could continue in this weather another day - we'd just had enough, it had beaten us. We needed a break, and we were in the middle of nowhere (this section of the country has little to offer travelers of any kind), with 2/3 days of driving (at bike pace) to reach our target destination of Hanoi. We decided we would try doing the bus thing again - stacking the bikes on the roof and pay to be taken the distance. So off to the bus station where we found a really helpful chap, who spoke English pretty well after spending some time in London with his friend who is a black-cab driver. We were able to make a deal to take us and the bikes to Hanoi, although this time they removed rows of seats from within the bus and put our motorised stallions inside - the bikes were much happier for it.

No snakes this time, but a similar deal - where the guy hung from the moving bus soliciting fares from the street until the bus was bursting. The driver was so mad, that you couldn't bring yourself to look out the windscreen - it was just too terrifying. You just had to close your eyes and thin of something else.On-board we met a handful of Australian travelers this time who we shared the back seats with. Two friendly girls who had just arrived from Laos, at the back-end of their travels finishing in Vietnam before returning home, and one guy called Jeff, who had been cycling (yes you heard it - cycling) from Barcelona, back home to Oz!!! He has crossed Europe, the Middle-East, and Asia, again just arriving from Loas, he was hitching a ride with his bike to the north of Vietnam (again to avoid the weather), before traveling it's whole length from north to south. He'd clocked up 18,000km since April when he left, and he has more than 6 months before he's thinking of returning home. He carries a tent with him and camps wherever he wants en-route, only using cities to sleep when he needs a break. I couldn't quite decide if he was an inspiration, or just crazy, either way he seemed like a nice chap, and made the bus journey pass quicker. He sure had some tales to tell! :)

And so we arrived in Hanoi. Updated visual journey progress. We're here for a good few days now - getting clothes washed, eating some good food, doing some sites, and waiting for the Chinese/lunar new year celebrations that are in about 3 days time - should be good!

Poor old Lukas got bitten about 5 days ago in Hue in the night, and it had swelled up quite large. It didn't go away and got bigger and bigger, until yesterday his entire arm was swollen to about 1.5 times it's usual size, and the epicentre was starting to ooze some pretty horrible liquids... A bit worried we took him to the hospital this morning to get checked out. Fortunately he'd improved overnight thanks to the antibiotics Peter had bought with him, but it still needed looking at as he pulled a centimetre square lump of solid puss from it this morning (YUK!!!), which left a rather sizable hole in his arm that needed properly cleaning and sealing. So that what's we did at the hospital, where we were told he had a soft-tissue infection, and he was given a pile of new antibiotics and some anti-inflammatory tablets to take for the next week.

Lukas and his gamy arm - eeeeewwwwww :S

He all good - not to worry. We're all just glad he's on the mend. Ahead of us we have a trip to Halong bay which is supposed to be stunning, but we need better weather really. And we've some tough decisions to make regarding the bikes - do we sell up at this point and continue by bus, or can we find a way to get the paperwork needed to cross the boarder into Laos to continue the journey how we'd prefer - at our own pace, on the back on my Lady Pony, with the boys in my mirrors tearing along mountain roads (well I'm usually at the back - I drive too fast apparently). Tune in next time to find out! TTFN.

And yes Bazza – they really do eat that shit! And worse!

Day 27 – Snakes on a mini bus

2008-01-27T13:53:00.000Z

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

2008-01-27T13:41:00.000Z

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

2008-01-23T11:05:00.000Z

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

2008-01-22T11:53:00.000Z

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

2008-01-18T13:22:00.000Z

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

2008-01-16T08:03:00.000Z

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

2008-01-15T07:37:00.000Z

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

2008-01-10T14:10:00.000Z

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

2008-01-09T12:32:00.000Z

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

2008-01-07T15:53:00.000Z

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

2008-01-03T12:54:00.001Z

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:

Day 0 - Preparing to leave

2007-12-30T12:00:00.000Z

Well, the time as come, I'm all packed - got everything I need for the next quarter of a year on my back,... I hope. ;)

Plane flies at 20:30 from Heathrow, and then there's a 6h 40min flight to Qatar, Doha airport (below), presumably I'll be spending the strike (clock, not workers!) of new years on the plane, somewhere...? Not sure how that works when you're flying... but will find out. I suspect being Qatar airlines they will do it based on Qatar time (+3h GMT), so should be half-way through the flight!

Qatar, Doha:

Once landed, I have to haul ass as I have 50 mins to find Lukas & Petr (Who have just flown from Czech republic, to Germany, and then onto Qatar) and get on the connecting flight (07:30 departure Qatar time) that takes us all to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon - below), Vietnam together. The connecting flight takes us a further 7h 20mins, putting us as 18:50 Vietnam time (+7h GMT) - just enough time to dump our bags in the hotel we booked for the first two nights, get a bite to eat, and crash crash crash.

Ho-Chi-Minh, Vietnam:

The plan from there on in is pretty non-existant. Find our bearings, get our hair cut, Figure out what we want to do first, and do it. Rough plan is to follow the Mekong from North to South, zig-zagging or way through Cambodia & Laos along the way, and maybe a few other countries too...? Vietnam is the backbone for out travels - where we have our month VISA, the rest we get along the way as and when we need them.

The adventure begins! Stay tuned!

Travel blog

Day 91 - Final entry, time to come home :(

Day 87 – And now, then end is near, it's time to face, the dive site

Day 82 – Separated in Cambodia

Day 77 – relaxation time :)

Day 71 – the ruins of Angkor

Day 68 – Cambodia wild-east exploration

Day 63 – Arrival in Cambodia

Day 60 - The last few days of biking

Day 57 - biking around S.E Laos

Day 53 - Luang Prabang and the surrounding area

Day 46 - Laos is a calling

Day 44 - Hanoi, the North, and the end of an era.

Day 34 – Driving in Vietnam; the art of staying alive

Back to driving...

Continuing with our journey

Day 27 – Snakes on a mini bus

Day 27 – Recipe cooking class

Recipe 1: Pho Bo (Beef noodle soup)

Ingredients

Method

Recipe 2: Fish with chilli & lemon grass

Ingredients

Method

Recipe 3: Chicken hotpot

Ingredients

Method

Lovely jubbly!

Day 23 – Cultural pondering

Day 22 - Return of the sunshine

Day 18 – the big-chill

Day 16 – Singing in the rain

3 hours later....

Day 15 - The long & winding road

Day 10 – off roading

Day 9 - Biker boys from Europe

Day 7 – The beach

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

MORE TO FOLLOW SOON!

Our next destination, Phan Thiet:

Day 0 - Preparing to leave

Qatar, Doha:

Ho-Chi-Minh, Vietnam:

Happy new year everyone!!!