The Great Vagabond Fandango

Well, a long overdue update from us both! Hope everyone is well and has had a good Christmas, we haven’t done too badly here considering we are in Laos, we even managed to secure a Turkey dinner on the big day! Wasn’t quite up to the standards of home but beat rice and noodles for sure.

Bear in mind that we can’t cover everything because doing this takes so long (we’ve spent about 6 hours each on this), but we’ll try to keep more up to date from now on! We’ve also had a horrible time getting photos uploaded because the connections are so slow here but there’s a few up now, and there will be more when we get faster internet! Also about this blog - the companys hosting it are a shower of (ahem), which is why it’s so slow and tempremental, nothing to do with my design skills! I’ll try and get it moved to a different host when I can get a decent computer etc…anyway!

We’ve also written nothing about Laos yet, we’ll wait until we’ve seen a bit more, but there are a few photos up on the flickr site.

You can access our photos directly here! So add it to your favourites.

OK lots to catch up on since last time so here we go!

China Continued…

So back at the end of October (around the 21st) we left Beijing for Xian on an overnight train. This was to be one of the worst journeys we’ve had so far. We originally planned to get a soft sleeper which would have meant we shared a small room with 2 other Chinese but it would have been relatively comfortable, we might have even got some sleep! But alas this wasn’t to be. Due to us leaving it too late to book our ticket we had to settle for a hard seat, but hey how bad could it be, right!? Pretty bad it turns out, we were herded onto the train and had to battle with the ever polite Chinese even though everyone had a ticket for their seat, so there was absolutely no need for the chaos. The seats were laid out 6 at a time, 3 facing each other, and a little too small for 3 people to sit at and have any room to move. This was all OK but we were in the middle of a group of co-workers who immediately started bitching (in Mandarin of course) about our luggage taking up so much room when in fact they had 10 times more than us. This was the start of a night of general unpleasantness with lots of staring, whispering, touching, prodding and just plane rudeness directed at us. They also took pictures of us while we were asleep! The Chinese also (on this train at least) seem to be incapable of sitting down for more than 5 minutes without having to get up and completely readjust their luggage! We vowed never to do a hard seat again…

As you can imagine we were glad to see Xian, though it was pissing rain when we arrived. One soaking later and we got picked up by our pre-booked hotel and were at the south wall of the city in no time.

Xian is famous for one thing: Terracotta Warriors. Not going to see them would be like going to Giza and not stopping by The Pyramids. So duly we booked a tour a few days after we arrived. For those who don’t know, the warriors are thousands of terracotta army persons that were found by a group of farmers outside Xian (they were digging a well). The whole thing was quite impressive, not least the amount of work that has gone in to restoring the warriors, each one about 6 foot, not including horses, chariots etc. Photos probably say it best on this one so check them out.

We relaxed a bit in Xian and took in the city, walking and cycling around the walls of the city was a great way to see all the different districts. Our last night was spent eating a drinking, we met some cool people in the hostel (as it had a bar / restaurant), but over indulged a bit and were both feeling pretty rough the following morning. So the walk to the train station from the south wall to the north one was not pleasant! But thankfully for our next train ride we had been on the ball and got ourselves a soft sleeper, success! We were initially in different carriages but got sorted quickly enough by the seemingly nicer class of Chinese people in the soft sleeper seats.. Hey, who says money doesn’t buy class? We were even plied with fruit and snacks from the lovely woman in the bed beside Laura, how nice! We had a bit of trouble in the restaurant car, no English menu..no one to speak English..hunger then dictated that we’d sample a few random dishes from the menu. Dish one: Pork, Dish two: Chicken, so far so good.. Dish three: Tofu, ouch! A swing and a miss. We got enough to feed us anyway

Eight hours later we arrived into Shanghai, economic centre of China. My immediate impressions were of a mini-Tokyo (though not all that mini). Great transport system meant getting around the city was easy. People seemed alot more used to Tourists (read: whiteys) and there was no staring, hurrah! Our hostel here was alright, shared bathrooms and a few rats running about (not in our rooms though)…Aren’t we brave! The main attraction of Shanghai is really the city itself, very modern and cool. The Bund (the area running along the river) offers some great views of the skyline, and you also have a good chance of an attempted hustle! We were approached by 2 Chinese girls (tourists too dontchaknow!) with impeccable English who were talking to us for about ten minutes..trying to butter me up with such gems as ‘Oh the name Simon means ‘leader’, did you know that?’, giggling at my voice ‘It’s so deep, just like the BBC’! We always have our guard up but did think these two were maybe just practising their English with us (hey it does happen, and I do have a very good voice!), until of course they asked if we’d like to go to a great Chinese show with them… We make a hasty retreat and have another story to tell, every ones a winner!

We toured about Shanghai for the next couple of days, visiting Nanjing road and all the shops etc. Parts of it are very similar to Tokyo. We had a bit of a weak moment when we spotted a western style pizza buffet, we ate a lot of pizza and felt the usual guilty feeling travellers seem to have when the eat anything but rice and noodles in Asia, it’s cheating! I think we may have had a BK at some point too…I know, I know… We did redeem ourselves by braving it into a little cafe near our hostel, no English menu, and no one to speak English, which can be a bit intimidating when you are the only white people in the whole place. All we had was my iPods translation of ‘meat noodles’. Lo and behold we got some of the best pork noodles & soup we’ve had yet for about 1 or 2 pounds, great! We went back the next night too.

The French Concession Market at Shanghai’s Science & Technology Train station was a bootleggers dream. You have to brace yourself before going in as you will be hounded by every sales person in the place to buy their dodgy goods, they had fake *everything*. Watches, shoes, belts, clothes, movies, games, sunglasses, fake iPhones, bags, and more. I did partake, got a very good deal on a Tag Heur watch, Ray Ban sunglasses, and a D&G belt, hopefully I haven’t contributed to the downfall of those poor companies. It would have been more if I didn’t have to lug it all half way round the world! Laura got a nice Swatch watch, but alas we didn’t realise it was missing a winder to change the time until the next time-zone…. Aw well, it was only about a quid!

Hong Kong

31st of October saw us leave China and fly off to Hong Kong (yeah yeah, it is China, but not really). To get to Shanghai airport we took the famed Shanghai Maglev. Which means i’ve gone faster than any of you have on land, it gets up to 431 km/h (268 mph). It made the Shinkansen seem like an Ulsterbus, it gets to the airport in about 7 minutes (30 km away).

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is so different from anywhere we saw in mainland China. Everyone speaks English, transport system is fantastic, food is great and everything is just so easy compared to across the border. We were really wary of where we were going to stay after hearing so many horror stories of over priced crappy accommodation in HK. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer place though. We stayed at the Yes Inn, and due to us not booking the next nights in time we managed to see most of the available rooms! It was a really nice place, cool people there too. It was located about 2 metro stops from Lockheart road, HKs central nightlife street. It had been a while since we had been into a proper bar so we headed out on our first night, had a few (expensive) drinks. One of the few down-sides to HK nightlife was the amount of sleazy (white) business men hitting on all the young HK girls. Though I think in general they were just in it for a few free drinks, girl power eh!

The skyscrapers in HK are something else, by far the best skyline of anywhere we’ve yet been! And it’s got two of them, on one the Kowloon coast and the other on HK Island proper. Both seemingly trying to out do each other to spectacular effect! There is a laser light show on the skylines every night too , very impressive.

Hong Kong is expensive, but like Japan, not as bad as people say. There are fast food places that aren’t too dear and do some really nice food. The amount of electronic shops is unreal too, and they use UK plugs so I was able to buy a wall charger for my iPod, yeah! This meant I wouldn’t leave it sitting plugged into a computer to charge and forget about it again…whoops…happened twice!

As the pubs seemed so expensive we took the budget option on our first saturday in HK (1st November) and wento to a supermarket for a few beers and lady drinks for laura. Then we went to the seating place under the IFC building (currently tallest building on the skyline) and got some great takeaway fajita things, was good eating! Great views, really great weather and cheap! I’ve just realised that this sounds suspiciously like we had a carryout in the park like a couple of vagrants, but it wasn’t like that, honest! No trip to HK would be complete without a trip on the Star Ferry across the bay. Was a nice experience, definitely a good way to cross the river!

We also took a tram ride to the top of Victoria peak, this thing is nearly vertical at some points. Very surreal trip! Unfortunately the weather was against us and the grey mist / cloud meant the amazing views were hiding for the day…

We had deliberated going to Macau while we were in HK, and since it would mean another stamp in our already respectable looking passports we decided to go for it and take a visit for the day on the ferry. Macau is another special administrative region of China with it’s own borders etc. It’s also the Vegas of the Asia and is packed with casinos. We arrived a couple of days before the Macau GP so the roads were all set up for the racing, pretty cool to see. We went to one of the big Casinos (Sands), and for a while we were high rollers, on a lucky streak, nothing could stop us, but we had to take it too far..We didn’t know when to quit! We learned alot of lessons that day, and came away losers..we were down about 40 HK Dollars, damn you slot machines! We headed back to Hong Kong with our tails between our legs!

Our last day in HK was spent getting out stuff together and making our way to the airport. En route we did a bit of last minute reading about Vietnam, our next stop. There was something in the guidebook about needing a Visa, and that none were available on arrival, that couldn’t be right though could it?! Everywhere in SE Asia is Visa on arrival, right?! Argh!, we had messed up, you do of course need a Visa for Vietnam, and we had none. We couldn’t get on our flight but luckily could change it until the Saturday for free, phew! We scuttled back out of the airport, headed straight to the Vietnamese embassy in HK and applied for our Visa…Don’t laugh! We spent the next few days feeling embarrassed and tried to avoid any questions on why we weren’t in Vietnam yet! We had one last night on Lockheart road and settled down for a night of Rocktails at a great pub. We returned the next day for the best fry we have had since we left home, it was fantastic apart from the guilt of course

And so on Saturday we headed back to the airport, only to find out that our flights hadn’t been changed to Saturday…but to the day before… Not good, we thought we were really screwed but a few shouts of ‘ this isn’t our fault’ and forlorn looks soon had us sorted (for free again), phew number two!

So onto Saigon, Miss Laura shall take over for the next section (hey, fairs fair!)

Vietnam

We arrived into Ho Chi Minh, or Saigon all prepared for the madness ahead. The plan was to avoid all the crazy taxi drivers at the international exit and head for the domestic arrivals so off we went, grabbed a taxi that wouldn’t rip us off and set off. On first impressions, Vietnam was crazy, the road, without lanes, was a sea of bikes and mopeds, with everyone beeping for space, but we arrived safe and sound at our very nice hotel.

We got our bearings, checked the map and headed in search of food. To get to the backpacker area, (all the bars and eateries) we had to cross a few roads, but more importantly we had to find our way across a roundabout… No big deal, I hear you say, but remember, Saigon has no green men and the roads are crazy! Everywhere we had read said, “Walk at a slow steady pace, the drivers will simply swerve around you,” but this is easier said than done, it is against every ounce of common sense to dive into a fast, noisy sea of bikes… so we saw some locals (the ones not quivering with fear) and followed them across the road… it’s all true, walk slow and they really do swerve around you. Some of the more cheeky drivers wait until they’re nearly hitting you, but still swerve when it counts. Needless to say after a few road crossings we were danger-dodging experts. No Fear! It was worth it though, when we arrived at the backpacker area, they were so many bars and different types of food! Needless to say, after the stress of Hong Kong, and partly because our hotel had HBO and Star Movies, the first few days were spent eating, sleeping, eating, drinking, eating and watching some English speaking TV. We did spend one day searching for somewhere else to stay as our hotel was expensive for the area, and successfully found our new home… Madame Cuc’s, perhaps the friendliest place we’ve stayed to date. They give you tea, coffee and fresh juice without asking, and if you time it right, they feed you too! Most importantly, the staff go out of the way to make you feel at home, this place was probably one of the main reasons we stayed so long in Saigon!

We eventually got back into travel mode and arranged a tour to Ca Daoi Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels. We had an early start so we could make the daily prayer service in the Great Holy See Temple in Tay Ninh, it’s a beautiful temple, and the service was definitely different! They all wear different coloured robes depending on their rank within the Temple, and after an entrance procession, sit in allocated areas for some prayer and song.

After lunch, we headed to the Cu Chi Tunnels, the big underground network of tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the war. Our tour guide Minh, showed us around the site, including some nasty looking booby traps. ( I resisted all urges to push Simon in) before we got a chance to crawl in the tunnels. Cue a minor freak out from perhaps the most typically blonde girls we’ve met on the trip. After their drama, some of our group began the crawl into the first tunnel, They’ve widened the tunnels for us westerners, so going in, all I was worried about was spiders and other crawlers; I thought I was doing quite well, until I realised that we weren’t actually in the tunnel yet, so things got a little darker, a little warmer, and definitely smaller, but there’s an escape route every so often, so we crawled on. Just as we were coming up to an exit, I was convincing myself it wasn’t as bad as I thought and should carry on, the couple in front of us stopped to take some photos, which would’ve been fine if we weren’t stuck on a tight, dark corner and they didn’t take so darn long. A few minutes wait, they still weren’t moving, and I was beginning to understand how claustrophobia can kick in, so decided to crawl out faster than Julie in a black taxi! Simon followed, apparently to see if I was OK, but seeing I reassured him I was fine before I left, I figured he also got the fear!

Before we left, we decided to do one other thing that Cu Chi is famous for… putting a gun in a westerner’s hand and allow them to fire it at animals. OK, the guns are bolted down and the animals are wooden cut outs. There was only a few of us that wanted to shoot, (the snake-skin handbag loving blondes thought it too immoral to hold a gun) so Simon and I paid for our ten bullets each and headed for the gun range. We’d decided to shoot an AK-47, and were pleased to get some protective headphones when we got down. They didn’t work, the noise was unbelievable! Simon really enjoyed shooting, but honestly, I thought it was just scary!

The next day we chilled outside one of the bars, watched the crazy traffic and read our new books. A distinct lack of copyright laws means you can buy photocopied books for cheap! Wait long enough in any spot, and usually a Vietnamese girl will come up with a whole stack of books on her hip ready to sell you all the Lonely Planets, and any other books popular with the backpackers of today. They’re not bad copies, except for the few pages missing here and there!

The next day we went to War Remnants Museum. We had been warned that it left you feeling a bit down, but having done Hiroshima Museum, we figured it couldn’t be much worse. It started with the history, facts and figures on the war, and we worked through that and the displays of tanks and aircraft quite quickly. We went into the final section, and it was as awful as everyone said, the display was mainly photographs, but reading the descriptions, you realised that almost everybody in the photographs are now dead. There was one photograph of a family that was taken minutes before the entire family were shot, and a lot of photographs of soldiers burning houses and performing torture, all a bit shocking really. The next bit was on how people were affected by the war, and of the various survivors. It was a bit gruesome too, as there were many photos of injuries and deformities caused by the chemicals used during the war. There was also a display of babies and foetuses that had been stillborn, or hadn’t survived, again because of the chemicals. Photos of the survivors were a bit brighter, the famous photograph ‘the girl in the picture’ Kim Phuc, was on display, alongside a recent photo of her and her son. Despite this, we left the museum feeling a bit numb.

The next day, we visited the Reunification Palace and the Notre Dame Cathedral, The Reunification Palace. It was interesting to look around it, because they haven’t changed the inside, it felt as if you were having a snoop around someone’s house, but I did think, with it being called a palace, that it would’ve been more impressive. I did think it was funny that the President had a “boy’s room” complete with cinema, pool table and his very own bar! Notre Dame, is pretty, but doesn’t compare to Paris! On our way to all the tourist sites, we passed a cinema, and decided to take full advantage and watch the new Bond film; of course no film is complete without snacks, so we settled down with popcorn, Pepsi and some tomato crisps!

We arranged a Mekong Delta tour through the same company as before, and so with another early start, we headed off the next morning. The tour advertised, “More Boat, Less Bus” so we were more than happy when we got to a mini-port and was told that would be the last bus of the day! We continued the rest of the tour on a boat down the Mekong River, it was definitely a lot more fun cruising down the river, not only for the sights, (houseboats, riverside huts, small markets) but also because so many people we passed waved and said hello. A lot of the kids ran along the river chasing the boat, until everyone in the boat waved. Very friendly!

We stopped at Coconut Village, which is basically a little workshop where everything is made from coconuts and rice. We watched some coconut candy being made, and some ‘Pop Rice’ which is pretty much the same idea as Pop Corn, except it tastes like Rainbow Drops (Remember those!) We stopped for lunch, and were encouraged to get the local speciality… huge prawns and elephant ear fish, fresh from the Mekong. Not a fantastic seafood lover (I am getting better) I was a bit worried, but, while on the Mekong and all that. The seafood was that fresh, that as Fu, our guide, was showing us the prawns, they were literally jumping out of his hands. The Elephant Ear Fish, so called because of how it looks when it’s cooked, is presented in a little stand still with a head and a tail… but I struggled on, beheading prawns on the way, and have to say it was very tasty! We got rice paper to make rolls with the fish and noodles, so fun as well! We then got a little mini cruse in a smaller boat, when we had to wear the cone hats, as you can see from the photos, Simon loved his new look! Onto our bigger boat again for our sunset cruise (which was meant to cost extra, but for some reason we got it for free) we ended up in Can Tho for the night. The hotel was a far cry from Madame Cuc’s and for a change, we were missing somewhere other than home! After a cheap, but tasty steak dinner and a drink, we had an early night to prepare for another early start.

The next day, we visited the Can Tho Floating Market, which put all the smaller ones to shame. Seeing a boat full of whiteys, they sail up to sell you all sorts of drinks and fruits. We couldn’t go very far in our tour boat, so took smaller boats out again. While we were waiting, we were able to chill on top of our boat, and take full advantage of the fresh fruit on offer. We had some pineapple, which was cut, so it looked like a lollipop, very tasty. When it was our turn to get on the smaller boat, we ended up in front of the driver. It was all a bit funny, when he asked Simon to help, and the boat stopped moving. I was laughing on the other side of my face though, when Simon sat down and the driver asked me for help, I think we might have moved a little further, but it really is harder than it looks! We finished the tour with a group lunch in Can Tho, where we were treated to a sample of snake wine, which tastes like a nasty whiskey. Alain, a guy on our tour, ordered some snake for lunch, but was generous enough to offer us a bit. It didn’t taste too bad, but the texture was weird, like a cross between chicken and fish.

On the tour we were talking to two Irish girls about an island off the coast of Cambodia. Doing some reading we discovered the island, although closer to Cambodia, was actually part of Vietnam, and meant to be paradise before the westerners spoiled it with resorts. So on arriving back to Saigon, and Madame Cuc’s, we decided to head to the island for a ‘vacation away from your vacation’. We had two options, we could fly directly from Saigon, or bus it overnight and take a ferry in the morning. Forever trying to save pounds, we decided on the bus and ferry, how bad could it be?

Famous last words. Our bus wasn’t meant to leave Saigon, but we were told we would be picked up at 10:45, no one could explain why we needed to be on the bus an hour before it left, but we quickly discovered that our bus, was actually a minibus, that doubled up as the DHL or Fed-Ex of Saigon, and spent an hour picking up parcels and various passengers before leaving Saigon after midnight. This alone was stressful, we were told it takes 6-8 hours on the bus, depending on traffic and ferries along the way, our boat left at eight, so leaving Saigon late was not an option. We had read the horror stories of Vietnamese buses, cramped, loud Vietnamese music, few toilet stops, bad roads etc, but nothing prepared us for what would be joining us on our trip: 101 Cockroaches and this was no Disney movie; we noticed a few bugs crawling around the window Simon was beside, but didn’t think much of it, until every time we passed a light, we noticed that everywhere was crawling with the 101 cockroaches and their entire families. They were on the floor, on the countless packages and parcels, on the windows, crawling along the seats. It was, in all honesty, a complete nightmare, even Simon hated it. Along with the bugs, no one spoke English except to shout ‘You!’ and it was cramped with people, oh and loud Vietnamese music really does suck as much as everyone says. On a positive note, I was ‘adopted’ by a little Vietnamese granny, who insisted on me getting off at each toilet stop, showing me where the toilet was, lending me her towel, offering me food, and trying to hold a conversation in Vietnamese, which coincidentally I don’t speak a word of, because everybody speaks English! She did give me the fright of my life though, I had finally got some sleep and was wakened by a strange sensation across the back of my neck, I obviously presumed was a giant bug, or worse, and so jumped a mile, while making some gruesome noise. It was simply the poor woman, probably sitting up to make sure her whitey-friend was still alive, I did have some job explaining, in English, to her that I wasn’t a freak and that I didn’t think she was a giant bug, meanwhile, presuming I had taken real offence, she tried (though I don’t know for sure) to apologise for my near heart attack, presuming I had taken real offence. The end result: we shook/held hands for a few minutes, then she gently patted my shoulder until one of us fell asleep again!

So two buses, lots of bugs and two ferries, we eventually arrived in Rach Gia at the ferry port, and got talking to Siobhan (from N.I.) and Freddy (from Malaysia/Canada) who were getting the same ferry as us, and also had a turbulent time reaching the port…although they didn’t have bugs, so we won the bad bus story! We took the hydrofoil “Super Dong” over, and while Simon slept through the badly dubbed film, I thought nothing of the tiny black bags being passed around. That is of course, until I realised how much our boat was rocking and how many people around me were being sick. It was all worth it though, when one hour later, we landed on Phu Quoc, complete with palm trees, clear skies, and lots of sun. We travelled up with Siobhan and Freddy, and ended up in the place beside them. We got a beach hut, right on a perfect, quiet beach. It was being cleaned as we arrived, so we took the opportunity to realise we were hungry and so enjoyed bacon and eggs on the beach. Did I mention it really is paradise? The first two days, we spent in the water and walking along the beach, and on the third day, decided to rent a bike and explore the island. With a serious safety talk from our hotel owner, “Be safe, don’t go to fast” we set off. It didn’t take very long to get around the island, on the red sand roads, but after our explore we decided that our beach was the nicest part, after all, it has a perfect view of the sunset. The owner of our place was telling us that there’s plans for a big international airport, and how the island is going to get very developed, true enough, on our tour around the island you notice all the work that’s going on, building new roads, and big resorts. Now is the time to go!

We also took kayaks out for an hour, complete with fetching life jackets, and after a little practice, I was surprised that I could manage quite well on my own! We had a little explore on up the beach, and the rocky part of the water we couldn’t swim in, all very pretty. When it was time to return, we thought we would be oh-so professional, and get swept up the shore on a wave, all went well, until, as I was being swept up, and waiting on Simon (didn’t I feel good getting swept before him) a big wave decided I looked too smug, and washed me out, then tumbled me out onto a rock… I even have the scar to prove it! (It’s just a small one on my hand… but it’s still a scar!)

Freddy & Siobhan did Vietnam the sensible way, from North to South, so when they got back to the mainland, they headed straight to Cambodia. We wanted to spend a few more days on the beach, in the water and of course, eating and drinking! Paradise! However, it even rains in paradise, and although when it rains, it pours! We got caught in the rain and a thunderstorm one night, and when we got up the next day, instead of being completely dry like normal, it was still raining! It lashed for one day solid, and while we went to bed, I was convinced our little beach hut was set to flood; the next morning, it was as if it had never rained!

When it was time to head back, we had to head back to Saigon, this time with a reputable bus company for one more night, before heading up to Nha Trang as we were craving another beach. Unfortunately for us, after another overnight bus, (big bus, no cockroaches) we arrived at our little beach town, to be greeted with… rain. We checked into our ‘Nice Hotel’ (that’s actually the name) and set off to explore our rainy seaside, which was pretty, apart form the massive waves that meant no one was allowed in the water! When the rain eased a bit, we rented another bike, to explore a bit further. This was a different experience than the island, for poor Laura on the back, on the island, the only drama we had was when Simon’s helmet flew off and hit me on the way by, but here in Nha Trang, there is traffic, roads with rules, and roundabouts. Don’t get me wrong, Simon is not a bad driver, but when you are sitting behind him watching all this going on… well you get the fear! Just to had to the fear, when you’re crossing a really busy junction and have to do an emergency stop, nearly coming of the bike, you get a little apprehensive, but we’ve survived… so far!

From Nha Trang, we took our first sleeper bus to Hoi-An, and what luxury it is! OK, you get frozen from the air con, and still have to do the toilet stops, but the space! We were like two kids at Christmas, though the novelty wore off after about an hour! Hoi-An is a sleepy little town, more famous for its tailors and Bia Hoi than the fact the whole old town is a world heritage site. Just beside a river, that often floods as we discovered one night, it’s a pretty little town, with traditional buildings with people making everything from statues to fabric. This is also where everyone gets their customised clothes and shoes, but we saved the money instead!

On exploring the town, Simon had his first experience of ‘Bia Hoi’ which translated, is fresh beer, but to us Irish, it’s home brew that costs less than 30p a glass! It was also here, that we truly understood the term ‘flash-packer’ On heading out for happy hour, we got talking to a guy Chris (who I realised was the same guy in Nha Trang that I thought was getting scammed by a hooker, he wasn’t for the record, it was just a date!) and Wen-Wen, a girl from Australia. After too many drinks and shots of snake wine (do we ever learn?) we headed to the only bar that stays open late, ‘Happy King Kong’ crammed on bikes, yes, Simon, I and the driver on one bike, fun! We realised this bar was full of flash-packers, eg people who flew rather than take a bus! While arranging a wedding party for Wen-Wen and Fountain (an Irish flash-packer) we also agreed to meet the next day for a walking tour of the town. Needless to say, there were a lot of hangovers the next day, and the only people in the bar where me and Wen-Wen!

After Hoi-An, we took a bus up to Hue, where we rented another bike to do our very own tour around the citadel and Thien Mu Pagoda, this time with no drama! We didn’t spend very long in Hue, because we got a bit conscious of time, seeing as we wanted to be in Laos for Christmas, so another sleeper bus called, and off we headed to Hanoi.

It was weird being in a proper city again, though with its lake in the middle, Hanoi is quite pretty. The first day we priced tours for Halong Bay, then as we changed hotels on the second day, I took ill. This not only meant that I was stuck in our spinning hotel room moving only to be sick, for days, but that we didn’t have time to go to Sapa or Halong Bay. Simon did take great care of me though, researching doctors (thankfully we didn’t need one), taking regular pharmacy trips, and when I could finally keep water down, went and got me soup, and beans and toast. (Not all in one sitting though!)

We had planned to brave the thirty hour bus to Laos, not being flash-packers and all, but seeing as when I finally left the hotel room, I was holding onto Simon like a frail old woman, we decided to buy ourselves early Christmas presents… flights to Laos.