Friday 2 October It's a lovely relaxing morning to enjoy with out any pressure catching up on things. We have a nap and go for a long walk through the countryside. There are hundreds on bamboo rafts on the river today ferrying ppl up and down, shading with umbrellas. It looks like a rainbow. There are two men with nets collecting tags from the drivers when they go under the bridge. Not quite sure what they mean. We see butterflies and chickens, ducklings and far...

Thursday 1 October We are up for breakfast before 9. The plan is moon hill and town and back. Each is about 8 km away in a triangle. We head off on mountain bikes for for use by the house. On advise of another guest, a man from hungry working here for a year, we head off 'the back way'. It starts off mainly paved and along the river until we turn off into a small thin path that weaves itself between ppl's gardens and rice paddy's. The all the surrounding hills ...

Wednesday 30 September Malcolm wakes me from a deep sleep. But we have to get up apparently! Off the train we get through the station and met by many ppl offering rides. We were going to wait until later to get a ride, but there is nowhere to wait. We accept a ride with a taxi driver to the bus going where we need to go. They let us on and put an English movie on about a dog. When we arrive it's beautiful and surrounded by gorgeous mountains and greenery. We jus...

Tuesday 29 September I wake before the alarm and spend a bit of time checking messages. We are out of the hostel by 7am and head to the train station. The streets are pretty quiet at this time. It's hot underground and I wish I'd left my sweater off. It's one transfer and 9 stops all up. It's a nice train station and waiting area. Seems pretty organised and tidy. We eat some breakfast then it's time to board which also feels like controlled chaos! There is plent...

Monday 28 September It's still dark so it's hard to know the time! But it's later than I thought! Once we are up and eaten we head out to catch the hop on hop off bus tour. Just down from the hostel is a train ticket place and we get our tickets for tomorrow morning printed. Less things to do in the morning! We walk down a fancy pedestrian street, but we are just too late and miss the bus. We pass time checking out a famous shopping mall. We hop off at the yu ga...