Hello again!

Just a mini update of our journey since leaving China....

We flew from Beijing into Hanoi and ventured to our pre-booked hotel in the old quarter. We were greeted by very friendly staff that carried our heavy rucksacks up numerous flights of stairs to our £6.50 a night room! Initially the room looked alright - a bed, TV, air con and a fridge but on closer inspection we noticed a few things wrong with the room and soon came to understand why the room was so cheap! We'd already paid for it so decided to bear it for a couple of nights while we sorted our Ha Long Bay and Sapa trips out. Hanoi itself was nuts - mopeds everywhere beeping all the time, people eating on the street and once again, people selling all sorts of cheap things! You really do risk your life every time you cross the road as there is no such thing as a pedestrian right of way - like China, there are no road! Luckily for us we'd already become pros at crossing - hold breath, step out and keep going! Any hesitation will cause mayhem! The beeping and hustle and bustle adds to the experience and atmosphere of course but after being in China with sooo many people and sooo much noise we just wanted a teeny weeny bit of peace and quiet! Not to be found in Hanoi old quarter though! Anyway, we set about finding a Ha Long Bay trip and booked a one night/2 day trip with a nice travel company. They were so good that we decided to book our Sapa trip with them too as it meant we could do them back to back and not waste any time! Once the trips were booked we relaxed a little and soaked up Hanoi old quarter with its street food, many shops and eateries!

The Ha Long bay trip was good and we were lucky that the sky was blue and the sun shone allowing us to see it at its best! Like Hanoi, it was busy but once we were on the boat it was relaxing. The room on the boat was better than our hotel room so we were happy! Ha Long Bay was beautiful with its many limestone islands, fishing boats and floating villages. We went to a huge cave and went kayaking before being fed well in the evening. The next day we climbed one of the islands to see the morning view - it was boiling! The clouds had returned making it extremely humid and us...very sweaty - lush! When we got back to Hanoi from the trip we sorted ourselves out and packed another little bag for our Sapa trip. That night we caught a night train to Sapa and were pleasantly surprised by the train compared to the ones we experienced in China. We slept reasonably well and arrived at the train station about 5am where we got on a bus that took us up the mountain to Sapa town. The hotel we were dropped off at was lovely, overlooking the valley. We had a shower and breakfast there and met our trekking guide. I purchased some rather attractive trekking shoes as my cheapy new look trainers were looking pretty sorry for themselves, with no grip at all! Dave wasn't too pleased with my new trekking look and laughed a lot at my new special shoes! Tee hee. On our trek we were accompanied by some of the village ladies and one little baby who was strapped to one of their backs using scarves and a sling thing. The hills and rice terraces were amazing - the photos really don't do it justice! We trekked through muddy rice fields and Dave slipped and fell over a couple of times - ha ha! He was rescued by the village women though - can't believe they trek through the mud and up the hills on a regular basis, some with babies on their backs - it was hard work! We stopped a few times to take in the spectacular views and watch the farmers at work with the water buffalos or planting the rice. The children we saw were especially beautiful although it was a little sad to see them playing it the dirt at the side of the dusty tracks. We visited a school, walked through a bamboo forest and stopped for lunch - this is where the villagers really tried to sell their handmade things - it was hard to say no but you can't buy everything from everyone! The homestay was lovely when we finally reached it about 5pm and we were made to feel very welcome and fed well! We had a little cooking lesson and made the spring rolls for the evening food! Yum, yum! The trekking the next day was just as hot and hard but not as long - we got picked up and driven back to Sapa town when we reached the village where we had lunch so we had time to look around the town before getting our night train back to Hanoi. It was Dave's birthday so he had a birthday beer and pizza!! The night train back was ok and we arrived back in Hanoi early and made our way to pick up our big bags and check into the room we booked for the day to keep our bags safe and have a shower. We enjoyed Hanoi one last time before getting yet another night train to Hoi An that night! We were all night trained out!!

Hoi An was such a contrast to Hanoi with its coastal location and quiet cobbled streets - bliss! We were pleasantly surprised by the Vietnam coast as we travelled on the train into Hoi An - beautiful. We both really liked Hoi An and wandered through the streets enjoying the shops and pretty town. We also hired bikes and went to the beach the next day - very hot!! We wish we could have stayed longer there really but we were aware of time flying by fast and having 3 more countries to visit!!

We flew from Hoi An to HCMC to save time as it would have been a hell of a long journey. HCMC is big and busy and arriving there was stressful! After a hot local bus ride and a long walk in the heat with our heavy rucksacks we found somewhere nice with a cosy room in the backpackers area. We booked a Cu Chi Tunnels trip, a bus to Siem Reap and our flights to Laos - a successful day! Cu Chi Tunnels were interesting even though we had rather an odd old man as a guide - a very strange man indeed! We also visited the War Museum which was not a nice experience for me - I couldn't look at most of the pictures - horrid and shocking that people had to go through such things. It made me feel very lucky of course. We also had some fab food in HCMC - very cheap and tasty!

The bus journey from HCMC to Siem Reap was an experience.....what started out as a 12 hour journey turned out to be a 16 hour journey. The first part of the journey to Phnom Penh was ok as we had a reasonably comfy seat in the middle of the bus and air con. It even had a toilet - although it wasn't exactly useable! The border crossing was fairly smooth as we were guided through and helped by the bus company workers. But once we reached Phnom Penh though it was a different story! The bus station was ridiculously busy - we kept a very close eye on our bags as they were taken off the bus. We thought we'd have to wait there for 2 hours for our connecting bus until we were told that we could get on an earlier bus straight away as there were seats left - we thought 'Great! We'll get there earlier!' Well...the seats left were at the very back of the bus pretty much on top of the engine so as you can imagine - the seats were very hot and the air con was non-existent at the back. We had a very long, hot and uncomfortable journey to Siem Reap - there were frequent toilet & food stops that were unbearable so once again I decided not to drink too much and hung on until we reached the end - we had no idea when that would be though as we'd already passed the time that the later bus that we were meant to be on was meant to arrive! I dread to think what time that one got in! We almost lost the will to live and to top it off....the music they played on the bus was shocking and riled us up even more! Tee hee. The only bonus was that we got to see some of the Cambodian countryside, houses on stilts by the water and the villages - lovely. Anyway...when we finally got there we once again, kept a close eye on our bags and were greeted by Dave's name on a board - the guesthouse we booked with were there to pick us up - yey! He helped us with our bags and led us to the tuk tuk - a fun way to get to the guesthouse! Phew...the room was lovely - one of the best we've had so far.

Cambodia blog coming soon!! Wished we could have seen more of Vietnam as we both enjoyed it more than we thought we would but hey ho...time flies and the next stage awaits!

Love to you all at home....not long now....looking forward to coming back to some home comforts and 'normality' as we call it!

Bye for now xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx