Right then folks, H has given me this blog to do cos it's a big 'en. I'll try keep it short but no promises...

So from Ninh Binh we went to Hué which was crap. Boiling hot and the Royal city and citadel looked a bit sorry for itself so we went to Hoi an...which was mint.

Hoi an is a beautiful little town on a river. It's protected by UNESCO so it's proper old school and traditional along the water front, loads of coloured lanterns along the streets at night. Our hotel was the Sunflower hotel and it had a pool where we slept of not one but two hangovers! Other than that we had dresses and suits made to our exacting and lofty standards so we were a little concerned about my choice of sky blue linen for my suit and helens pink dress. Fortunately my blue suit looks quite simply the mutts nuts, Helen's pink, nay peach, dress looked a bit like a bad bridesmaids dress at the first fitting but bucked it's ideas up for the refit. Her other 3 dresses more than made up for it. As well as that we decided to go to a little island called Cat Kim where there's no tourists just people going about there lives, which was really interesting until we got well lost on our bikes and got cooked in the afternoon sun so it was beer o'clock near the pool to cool the burn.

Next it was off to Nha Trang with our new friends Alex and Emily from Bristol. Little did we know we'd end up spending the next 2 weeks with them. Nha trang was hilarious. Beers on the first evening and a great meal followed by an early night as we were off on a $8 boat trip the next day. The boat trip consisted of an aquarium visit then snorkling on a great reef with the crappest snorkel gear ever which ruined it a little. Oh we tried raw sea urchin too which wasn't as bad as we first thought it might be. Not gonna have it again mind. After that it was singing with the boat band (we did ''Hey Jude, which was predictably horrendous) before they threw the floating barin the water and we got stuck into some dodgy Vietnamese wine in the middle of the sea. Then off to another island for a few more beers (it wasn't all drinking on holiday it just sound bad at the moment!) before getting back to dock and into town for...erm a curry and a few beers with Alex and Emily as well as Dave and Sally (mad Aussies) and Nunez and, the quite sickeningly handsome, Jorges from Portugal. The Night descended into farce and after several (loads) of beers (cocktails and buckets) we ended up in Ice bar, which was a bar made of ice....obviously. So we (the boys) got a bit naked! Then we were tucked up in bed by about 5am. And Dave was sick.

Next day was the water park at Vinpearl. Water parks are all the same apart from at this one some little b****** nicked my gold Havianas. I hope he trips and twists his ankle, badly, (anything more would be a bit of overkill i think).The only thing of real note were the 'family ride'that nearly ended us all and the upside down fairground ride that we all thought was gonna be a quiet little swing ride and hence all shat ourselves when we were suspended upside down for about a minute. Good views though.

Mui ne beach was next up for Me, H, Al and Em. Closed season so it was dead quiet so we just ate lots, stayed at Shades apartments for the second day for a treat as it was beautiful rooms, a great pool, 42" Telly, the works. So we drank a few bottles of wine and a good few mojitos and moved on to Dalat after 2 days.

Now the 4 hour trip to Dalat didn't go quite to plan. The road was a joke, the bus was tiny, and broke down, and the weather was horrendous. Apart from that it was fine. we got to Dalat and checked into Dreams. Cheap but with a jacuzzi on the top floor. Winner.

Dadswell's tours kicked in the next day so it was off to the Crazy house (a big wierd hotel/project) then the Camely Water falls, which were mega kitch. To the extent that they had white horses painted with stripes to look like Zebras, very odd. Oh and it rained again. Then it was off home for a jacuzzi in preparation for our Canyoning the next day.

Canyoning is basically absieling through/over waterfalls. I had previously let it be known that if we went trekking instead (as was everyone else's wish) I'd moan and pout like a spoiled child. So of we went canyoning.

The day was mega. 25m waterfalls, lots more rain, but it was warm anyway, and an 11m cliff jump. Only the real men did that one (me), everyone else bottled it and went from 7m.

That night we ate at Peace cafe with an absolute diamond of a women. hyperactive to the point of ridiculousness but very sweet, and a great cook. Then it was the hottest overnight bus to Saigon.

Saigon is very lively and after a very crap breakfast (we were all very tetchy due to lack of sleep) we had a nap...for about 3 hours and then went out to the market but didn't quite make it passed the bar that we saw that had all you can drink happy (3) hour(s) for three quid! It was a bit rubbish though cos all these fit vietnamese women kept topping up our beer till we were really drunk! Honestly if Carlsberg did happy hours...The night ended with Emily sitting on the floor of the shop near our hotel debating the pros and cons of differen Haribo sweets.

Next day Alex was rough after drinking with the big dog (me not Helen!) and we decided to go to the perfect place for a hangover the very warm, moist and clostraphobic Cu chi tunnels. An eye opener definately, those southern Vietnamese army were f'ing tiny. Day two in Saigon comprised of the market, the war remenants museum and the fairly crap Reunification palace.

This is where it all goes a bit Pete Tong. What we should have done next was get the 6 hour bus to Phenom Pehn. What we decided to do was get a rubbish boat trip into the Mekong Delta. Don't get me wrong, it was quite interesting it just meant that we spent the night in a pony 'floating hotel' which served me possibly the second worst meal I've had in 3 months. Next day was the Rubbish fish farm, followed by the rubbish walk then onto the rubbish boat for the 6 hours up the Mekong to Phenom Pehn. Or so we thought.

The boat never quite made it, and after abandoning it riverside we changed to a bus to arrive VERY sweaty about 5 hours late. Not cool...literally.

PP was ace though. The melancholy feeling of seeing the torture prison S-21 and the killing fields had to be washed away with a few beers obviously after a trip to the Olympic swimming pool. Let's just say I'm not sure it met olympic standards!

We parted with our new best mates in the morning and set off for a very uneventful coach to Sihanoukville, a very chilled out little beach town in southern Cambodia. H and I signed up for our PADI open water scuba diving course and sat next to the pool with our textbooks to knuckle down for the tests the next day. Tests passed it was off to Monkey island for our practical with Damion, our great diving instructor.

The next couple of days was spent in beautiful warm water taking masks off and putting them back on under water and trying not to drown and get water up our noses. Oh and we saw some spectacular fish notably a big shoal of jack fish, a shoal of barracuda, a big box fish and Helen got her very own Bat fish for company for two of the three dives.

Estactic at passing our course we dried ourselves off and headed north to Siem reap for some sleep and a day at the quiet spectacular Angkor wot. Truely up there with Machu pichu as the best archeological sites on the planet.

Oh then I spent nearly an hour and a half writting this. I presume no-one's reading anymore. If you are, well done you. Trust me that's the short version too! Off to Bangkok at 2am this morning. Wish us luck.