Greetings from Vietnam!

We began our Indochina tour by meeting the group and guide in Bangkok. We went out for a meal to get to know the others and they all seemed like fun! Two meals with two waters came to £3.75!

Next morning we took a very bumpy bus journey through the Cambodian border. After our arrival in Siem Reap we hopped on a Tuk Tuk (moped with a carriage) to a local village and were treated to a family meal. So interesting to see the simple daily lives in Cambodian villages - food was amazing!

4.45am start next morning (ouch!), but we were excited to see the sun rise over the Angkor Wat Temple - that never happened due to hazy sky, so we went back for breakfast! We returned to the Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom Temples, however the highlight was going to the Jungle Temple where parts of Tomb Raider were filmed. Think Indiana Jones - it seemed like a movie set. To get there we walked through the Jungle and passed enormous spiders and snakes! We then travelled to the Tonle Sap Lake - one of the largest fresh water lakes in Asia. It was here that we visited the floating village and tasted snake... mmmm! Not great seeing as we had just held a huge python. We believe safety is not their priority as we peered into their crocodile farm - below our feet! We then stopped off at a bar looking out onto rice fields and watched the sunset from our hammocks with a beer in hand. Great conversation with some great people. To round off the evening, we ate at a 4 star restaurant with a fabulous buffet of local food... we were even treated to traditional Cambodian dancing.

Another day we visited Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in the Cambodian capital - Phnom Penh. We hadn't fully prepared ourselves for what we were to see there. We were guided into the rooms where the torturing occurred. We saw more than we expected to such as pictures of how the bodies were found. Eerie feel to this place - both of us felt overwhelmed and quite sick. This then followed onto the killing fields... possibly even more overwhelming - don't think we need to go into any detail. It was a morning we could have done without, yet a valuable learning experience that made us feel so privileged to have the life we have. In the evening we enjoyed a cyclo tour around the city, a complimentary drink by the river and another local Cambodian meal - this time at a school. Tarantula wine is not that great!

Next day arrived at Sihanouk Ville at our bungalow. Thank Buddha it was Ade who found the cockroach in the bathroom, otherwise Holly would be paranoid for the next few days! Got quite drunk that evening on the beach from two buckets of cocktail and no dinner (won't be doing that again!). We learnt the next day that you should never take a boat trip when a monsoon's expected!

02/07 we crossed through the border to Vietnam and travelled a long way to our hotel in Chau Doc. That evening we were passengers on mopeds - scrary times!

We then travelled a good 7 hours to Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City - as it's now called. A good bye meal in the evening for those who were leaving the tour at this point. Visited the Saigon Market and the beautiful French Colonial Post Office building to send some souvenirs home.

Cu Chi Tunnels - so interesting to find out how the Vietnamese soldiers attacked and defended themselves from the Americans, with so little money for machinery and weapons. Their plan was to set many traps in the jungle that the Americans would fall into that would spike them with poisoned bamboo. Their tunnel system was quite astonishing, very intricate and small.

Hopped on our first sleeper train last night - that was apparently 5 star! No sleep really! Having a fantastic beach day in Nha Trang and getting a tan at last!

Miss you all xxx