Day 72 Thursday 19th November 2009 Johno says Our transfer to the harbour at Halong Bay went reasonably quickly. Halong Bay basically consists of 2,000 Islands and was designated a world heritage site in 1994. Once we arrived we were taken to our Junk (luxury Chinese style boat) where we would sleep tonight amongst the Islands out at sea. The boat was really comfortable with our cabin having a hot shower and large bed, better than some of the hotels that we hav...

Day 68 Sunday 15th November 2009 Johno says As we arrived into the remote town of Lai Chau in the northernmost part of Vietnam bordering China we could instantly notice a bit of a chill in the air and we didn't pack much warm clothing - oops! We had another crusty French stick here in a nearby hotel and at 9am our bus picked us up to take us to the local Sunday market at a place called Bac Ha which was roughly an hour drive away via some Police stops and bribes...

Day 66 Friday 13th November 2009 Johno says Today we transferred from Surat Thani to Hanoi in Vietnam. Our bus to the airport was fresh from the 1950's with seats only fit for a 30 minute journey. Our Friday the 13th flights to Bangkok and onwards to Hanoi was trouble free and pleasant as we arrived in Hanoi for 8pm. We quickly realised that your 30,000 times table learned at School would come in handy as there are 30,000 Vietnamese Dong to the pound, so our lo...

Day 65 Thursday 12th November 2009 Johno says Today we transferred from Ko Samui to Surat Thani on the mainland. First impressions were that it totally wasn’t designed for tourists with no bars or neon anywhere - this was a standard Thai town with lots of little road side barbeques offering the locals a chicken skewer or kebab for 20p. Once we booked into a nice little guest house we strolled through town amongst the school kids that had just finished for the...

Day 58 Thursday 5th November 2009 - Day 64 Wednesday 11th November 2009 Johno says At last there were ferries running from Ko Phangan to Ko Tao so we could both move on. (Also see Staceys week further down) I went back to Ko Samui as that is the nearest Island to the Thai mainland where we needed to get the next plane on to Vietnam and I had previously seen a Thai Boxing School there and I fancied a bit of that!!! Two full days of rest in Chaweng before moving ...