Simon's despatch: Na Trang We headed to the famous beach town of Na Trang to give me one last chance at kite surfing and to break up the journey from Hoi An to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC formerly Saigon). We were only staying one night so first off we needed to book ourselves onto the bus for the next leg of our open ticket from Na Trang to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Disaster the night bus was full! We either had to leave at 8am or get marooned in Na Trang for an ...

Simon's despatch: Hoi An. Ah sleeper buses. After using them to get to Sapa and back I've learnt to fear each journey on these. They're actually very well kitted out, consisting of three rows of bunk beds whose backs can also be raised into a sitting position. However, the three major drawbacks are: 1. The motion from going round all the wiggly corners. 2. The lack of toilet facilities requiring intentional dehydration before travel. 3. Me. I'm too big for V...

With steely grey skies, grubby buildings and milling people, on first viewing the north Vietnamese town of Sa Pa (or Sapa) had a slightly municipal feel to it. Which was odd because all the guidebooks rave about how beautiful it is. As we got off our night bus we were surrounded by a mingling throng of motorcycle drivers, other bleary-eyed tourists trying to work out what was going on, and strange women who wore velvet indigo clothes and tied their hair in plac...

Simon's despatch: Halong Bay. It had started to feel as though time was getting tight (I mean what can you really do in less than a month? ;). So we decided to be lazy and join the sheep on a package tour, organised through our hotel, to Halong Bay. We were herded onto a little big bus (I can't think of a better description) and breathed a sigh of relief as we realised it had air con. Hanoi was running into the high 30s at the time with very high humidity, whi...

Simon's dispatch: Tha Khek loop It's a very bumpy 6 hour bus ride from Vientiane down to Tha Khek, a fairly nondescript town on the Laos-Thai border. We went there to attempt one of our greatest adventures to date.. 'The Loop'. The loop is a 405km circuit of mostly good roads, some gravel roads and best of all about 20km of proper dirt road. It takes you through some stunning limestone karst scenery before delivering you to one of the most impressive caves in t...