Hi all, Well, our last blog. We really enjoyed all the Wats around Siem Reap - apparently there are over 250 of them (no, didn't see them all!). They were built in the 9th-12th century but are really well preserved with intricate carvings of religous and everyday life. Our guide was great with a good sense of humour and we were privileged to have him tell us of his life during the Pol Pot era and how he survived the genocide. It was pretty hot and luckily we fin...

Hi all, Hope you got our last blog - no replies but we hope it went OK. In Hoi An we had a cooking class- lots of fun and the food was excellent (in spite of us!)The cook explained all the fresh greens and herbs - sure we won't find most of them at home though. Well, we have survived Saigon - what a madhouse it is! So many cars and scooters - whenever we left the hotel the doorman would escort us across the road, putting himself on the traffic side and would h...

Hi everybody, We are now in Hoi An, south of Da Nang. I (Malcolm) am at least staeting off this blog entry,how far I will get I don't know, as the letters on the keyboard are almost warn off except the X's q's z's etc and I am not a "touch" typist. Our flight to Hue was delayed by about 3 hours,but when we got there our new guide and driver were waiting for us.We went directly to the citadel and forbidden city of the Nyguen dynasty to...

Hi all, We are now back in Hanoi for the last time! After we lwrote last we drove to Cuc Phoung National Park (about 1 1/2 hours) and had 2 nights hearing birds instead of horns. We had a birding guide there so were up and on the trails by 6:30am. We had some nice walks and saw about 50 new birds. From there we came back to Hanoi for one night then drove to the coast (3 1/2 hours) to Halong Bay where we got on a junk like the one in the picture for 2 nights. Our...

Hi all, I am building up all kinds of brownie points by at least starting this 2nd blog entry. We are now in Sapa in the north western highlands amongst all the various hill tribes. The overnight train ride was actually a lot of fun, we had a sleeper cabin with 2 lower and 2 upper bunks, but we were the only 2 in our compartment. We had been warned that the journey would be bumpy and would have lots of starts and stops so we had a half of an ove...