Booze Tube - Vang Vieng

So... we'd heard about the tubing in Vang Vieng (Laos) from travelers far and wide and we were rather skeptical, imagining it to be Blackpool on water. We were quite close but it turned out to be a lot of fun! We rocked up to the river at around 2pm with our rubber inner tube and were faced with basically a massive riverside party which you float from bar to bar on your tube. Unfortunately we don't have picture as we didn't trust ourselves with our camera that close to that much water but if you imagine the videos you've seen of the USA's 'spring break' (woooooo) on the side of a river you've pretty much got it!

There were also certain 'activities' you could do. So I swung off a trapeze into the river and Mike jumped off a high dive board and went on the biggest slide ever! And the best thing was we also bumped into some guys we met on the boat trip in Nha Trang so we boogied on down with them until we realised we were late for getting our tube back and would be fined - wooops!

Earlier that morning we explored Vang Vieng which itself is a beautiful place surround by mountains. We went to a massive cave and got to swim in the 'blue lagoon' which was the smallest patch of water but it was amazingly clear and went into a cave which was cool!

Vang Vieng was short but sweet but it defiantly gave us a taste of Laos and we're a bit disappointed we can't spend longer here!

M + S xxx

Lets get Extreme!

After a lot of sight seeing and visiting a lot of towns we decided to go and be active. As we were in Hanoi, Halong bay isn't too far way so we spent a whole day visiting every single tour company that have 2-3 day tours around Halong Bay with a few activities thrown in. We weren't quite convinced and the cost was a bit much for us. We found a bus and boat combo ticket that got us to Cat Ba - an Island in the Halong bay area. We ar so glad we did it this way, not only did we meet a group of really cool people but we also went to see an action adventure company called Slopony, let the fun begin!

Cat Ba was absolutly beautiful and we got see a lot of the rock formations in Halong Bay on our day trip we took with Slopony. The day started at 8.30am with a short bus trip to the harbour to jump onto our Junk Boat, we took an hour boat ride out to the rock formations and then split into two smaller boats to get closer to the rocks as the first activity of the day was... 'Deep Water Soloing' where you climb onto the rock and the boat leaves you, you then climb up as high as you can or traverse across and then make a leap off into the water, TOTALLY AWESOME DUDE! What a rush that was, not only was I crapping my self from the climbing I then had to jump off!!!

At one point I was concentrating so much I forgot I had to jump and realised I was actually quite high, well for me anyway. We both gave it our best shot but didn't manage the hieghts of some of the other guys. One of our guides got so high the sound of him splashing into the water echoed across the bay.

After a heavy morning of climbing we went back to the boat to have a well deserved hearty lunch. Now it was Kayaking time!
Steph and I spent the afternoon cruising around the bay going into caves and lagoons. It was a truely amazing experience and one we will definately not forget.

The next day we spent relaxing on a beach, Cat Ba was an absolute joy.

Cooking up a storm in Hoi An

Hoi An was our next stop, a town famous for it's many many suit makers. Every corner has a tailors able to make you what ever you desire - unless your Mike and Steph who'd rather spend their money on a cooking course, boom!

We spent the day at the red bridge cooking school, we first visited a farm to pick up some fresh herbs and then onto the local market which was a proper locals market not the ones just for tourists. Everything was so fresh and brightly coloured, it was great to see the real Vietnam.

Back at the restuarant we learnt how to cook pho bo (beef noodle soup, a fav of mine and stephs) prawns in lemon grass seasoning, bbq chicken and green papya salad and a sea bass claypot - bellissimo! Everything went smoothly untill Steph nearly took half her thumb off with a meat cleaver, it's all good though her nail saved the day!

It was a great day which we finished off in the pool, slightly stuffed from all the food we ate!

M & S
x

Riding Easy!

After much to-ing and fro-ing and many recommendations we decided to jump on the back of guided motorbikes for a full day Easy Rider tour round the beautiful mountainous countryside of Dalat. And were so glad we did. We started off with Trung and Haoi who were very nice about the fact that I was pretty damn nervous about getting on the back of that bike!

The day was amazing, we saw flower gardens, coffee plantations, rice paper and wine making, silk farm, waterfalls. And much more. But the best bit about it was thae beautiful veiws as we we wizzed around the mountain roads!

There was one slightly hairy moment when Mike was in front and his tour guide was a bit chatty and wasnt paying too much attention when a masive truck rounded the corner and Trung had to do some nifting weaving, it didnt even phase him though (these guys had been riding motorbikes for longer than I've been walking)!

All in all it was probably one of our most memorable days so far and we would definatly recommend it!

Beach bum's

So we've spent more than our fair share of time lazing on beaches since we've been in Vietnam. We visited a quiet little town called Mui Ne which is meant to be one of the quietest beaches on the tourist trail. It was fair to say that we (I) were a little disappointed with the very thin strip of beach and murky waters that we were presented with on arrival, but I think we had just been spoilt by the beaches in Cambodia!

The most interesting thing we did in Mui Ne was the sand dunes which are pretty epic and the sand changes colour, from red to yellow to white the further away from Mui Ne you get. We were a little disappointed by the sand sleding, after hiring our plastic sheets we ran up the dunes like kids hoping to race each other down! The reality was very different as we had to push ourselves down and we literally went at a snails pace!

Next beach up was Nha Trang, holiday destination of all Vietnamese! Again fairly standard beaches. This time we went on a boat tour to '4 islands' although when watching carefully on the way back it appeared that we may not have actually left mainland Vietnam at all, just sailed through some islands! All the same it was a good day, jumping off the boat and crazy Vietnamese singing! Also we treated ourselves to a pampering day of mud baths and mineral hot spa, so if we are looking fresh faced on our more recent photos, you know the secret!

Finally was the beach near Hanoi, I think this was my favorite, and not for the beach at all but for the scenic 4km bike ride we took to get there (although we managed to get lost, even though its pretty much a straight road, so it was probably more like 6 km!) Getting lost was the best bit about it though as we managed to cycle through the smallest villages. Ate some Pho Bo (Beef noodle soup) on the beach front and cycled back... perfect!

Meandering down the Mekong

Whilst in Saigon we noticed a lot of tour companies offering various tours and excursions (yes I did just say excursions,I'm either growing up or getting old) so we decided to do a 3 day tour around the Mekong Delta as it would be a bit tricky doing it on our own.

The three days were great. We were shown around a honey farm, rice paper factory, coconut candy factory and many floating markets. The 2nd day was our favourite as we got to go on a rowing boat with a really sweet lady who let us have a go, not that we were any good at it.

We then took a speed boat down the mekong through the jungle where we saw the most amazing birds and scenery. Our guide took us to a very local restuarant where we feasted on local food such as fish and pork in a claypot which is one of my favourite dishes so far,they're soooooo tasty.

Cantho was the next stop which is the biggest city in the Mekong Delta. The great thing about being here was that there weren't many westerners about. It felt like not many come here either as we noticed a group of teenagers following us around the local supermarket laughing at us!

The last day was basically a trip back to Saigon with a tour around a fruit farm. All in all it was a great experience, we did feel a bit like a group of hearded cattle but it was a great way to see local life.

Back in Saigon, getting ready to head to the beach in Mui Ne, life is bliss.

Mike and Steph

Crazy Saigon

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Vietnam after the looong bus journey from Phnom Penh and our first impression was... this is a crazy place! There are twice as many mopeds and no one acknowledges the zebra crossings so you have to be very confident to cross the roads! Although this was a very busy city we immediately liked it!

After a little nap we set about exploring the backpacker area and stumbled across a sister shop to one we had been to in Phnom Penh, Mekong Creations, the lady in there was so nice and helpful and gave us a map and lots of info about the city even though we didn't buy anything from there, that was great as we had heard mixed reviews about the friendliness of the Vietnamese people.

We then met up with Cassie and Ciera the Irish girls we met in Battambang which was great and spent a couple of days with them again.

We went to the Cu Chu tunnels which was where people hid from the USA army during the Vietnam war, this was interesting to see, even more so for the heavily one sided propaganda video we were shown which dubbed the USA soldiers as 'Crazy American Devils'.

The tunnels were not for the claustrophobic as your had to bend right down and shuffle through some parts, Mike and I were the only ones to complete the full 200m!!

We also visited the War Remnants museum which was not for the faint hearted, walls lined with gruesome pictures of the War and the after effects of Agent Orange were hard to stomach, but again a must if you are to understand the Vietnamese past.

Other than that we just enjoyed wandering around this city, enjoying the hustle and bustle, seeing the very french influenced architecture and just easing ourselves in to the Vietnamese culture.

'Notre Dame'

For saying we had not really got excited about Vietnam, it seems like an amazing place and we can't wait to see more!

S

Phnom Penh

After a great time chilling out on the Beaches we headed for the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. A buzzing city with lots to see. We managed to find the cheapest guesthouse so far called "No 10 Riverside Guesthouse' at $5 a night, bargain! Well you certainly get what you pay for, an absolute stink hole with an all night party outside our bedroom window plus the added bonus of a fan which sound like a helicopter. Cut to the morning, Steph is not happy 'I'm not staying here another night!', fair enough - I generally sleep through anything but I was done with the all night rave!!!

Sam and Rachael (from Koh Rong fame) had mentioned 'Fancy Guest House' which they had stayed in the week before at $15 a night, a bit more than we wanted to pay but we decided to jump into a tuk tuk first thing and head over. We were greeted by the friendlest guest house owner we've met so far, big smile and couldn't do more for us. He showed us to a spotless room with amazing aircon, done! That night we had the best sleep ever! We also managed to book a sleeper coach the next day which takes us to Saigon (Ho Chin Minh City, Vietnam) but more about that later.

Phnom Penh was certainly an interesting one. We visited the historical sights; S21 and the killing fields. These were more of Pol Potts and the Khmer Rouge doings, another sad but insightfull trip of the horror Cambodia went through. Apart from the sadness we also saw the charitable side which was my favourite part. There are a lot of charity organisations out here which have various agenders, we dropped into Daughters of Cambodia first which is this great little cafe and shop that sell home made goods made by the staff. We met a Canadian lady who voulenteers there and was so nice, Daughters employ sex workers who want to get out. They use to go into brothels and try get women to leave but they found that just by offering an opportunity was more succesfull. They give them on the job training such as cateering, hospitality and craft making skills and are paid from the start. We met two of the cafe workers who were so nice to us and very chuffed that we had learnt a few Khmer words (hello and thank you, we're trying to learn politness in every country) and it was great to see that these schemes are working. 'Freinds' was another establishment which offered a similar deal, they had a shop which sold arts and crafts as well goods made of recycled meterial, the walets made out of paper trimings were cool! They also had a tapas resturant which was bloomin AMAZING! The staff were really friendly and helpfull, another great insight into people actually doing something about their bad situation.

We managed to be in Phenom Penh at the same time as the Kings Birthday, they had two massive fire work displays (which we both loved as we knew we'd miss out on bonfire night, sad face) and a few things going on in the the center. The locals were all having a great time, it was great to see a nation who clearly respect their royal family.

After the fire works we waited for our night bus which was due to arrive at midnight, Fancy Guest House let us hang out in their foyer which was great. We were told the journey was going to take 6 hours and was a sleeper (a coach with beds) will we ever learn not to believe what we're told. The tuk tuk driver was late, but we got to the bus station in time and I was very chuffed as the bus which was the same as the snazzy picture on our ticket was waiting by the station, I went into the staion to give our details. The guy behind the desk pointed out our bus, you can just imagine the comdey - I looked to the snazzy coach with great delight to then see a clapped out dirty bus on the other side of the road - 'what that one???' "YEAH!'. Damn it! We spent the next 10 hours on a crappy bus with seats that didn't even recilne! However there was an up to the story... we got through the border with no hassle which was great - Saigon here we come!

To be continued...

Koh Rong - Paradise

So the day after the old man hit 30 we jumped on a boat to take the 2 hour scenic trip to Koh Rong, an island largly undeveloped with just a handful of resorts and a bucket load of jungle and beach.

On the boat we saw Aaron (the Aussie guy) and also met with a couple from Cambridge called Sam and Rachel who we ended up spending the majority of the time with.

As we approached the island I can only express it as breath taking... chalk white beaches, crystel clear sea and only a handful of people as far as the eye can see. (I can definatly see why our friends Olly and Gemma chose this place to get engaged last year!) We were shown to our beach hut which was literally a very girlie stones throw to the waters edge. When I say hut I mean hut, it was made out of palm leaves and had massive gaps between the walls and the roof so we were very at one with nature (we were definatly bunking with a family of geckos and a questionable furry animal Mike swears he saw!)

We pretty much just chilled for two lovely days and three nights, we played a lot of cards, drank a bit of Chang beer, saw an amazing guy do fire twirling and swam in the warm sea a lot.

Our best day was when we decided to go on a group adventure. We had been told about a desserted beach that you could just see poking out at the end of our beach that you could only get to by walking through the jungle (which we had been warned off due to the snakes). So after spending the morning building up enough courage and practising snorkling we doned our snorkle for the 45 min very scenic swim around the rocky edge of the island to the beach. It was awesome for me being the first time I have ever spent that long in the sea and my first time snorkling. It was mainly dead coral but we saw some many different types of fish and even some weird sea urchins! And it was definatly worth the swim...

We rocked up on this beautiful 400m stretch of untouched snow white sand and the beach was that kind where the sea went out for ages and your still only ankle deep! No shops, no people just sun, sand and sea! So what did we do with our time on this peaceful, desserted beach?? Well we played 'down on one knee' with a small buoy (not boy!) we found in the sea!

Unfortunatly we didn't have our camera on us because of the snorkling to get there so that amazing picture will have to stay in our heads!

The final night we had the most amazing storm which we felt we were right in the midst of due to our none sound proof (and slightly leaky!) hut. It was actually a bit scary when the thunder and lightening was directly above us but it made way for the most amazing sunrise I've ever seen the next morning!

Its safe to say we were very sad to leave Koh Rong... especially as we had to leave it to spend the next day waiting for 5 hours in a bar for our post (cash cards) to be delivered, but amazingly arrive they did!!! Thank you June Mckenna, you're a legend!

S xxx