easy now peeps, just another quick addition of 'my news'

Well we left the hot and beautiful beach of Nha Trang behind to head further north on what can only be described as another bus journey from hell. You would think we were used to them by now, but no each one has its own little stories to go with them, this week it is a 12 hour night bus. This week it is not bumpy roads you have to deal wiv but the fact that you are driving around mountains at 60 k's an hour overtaking other buses on blind corners honking the horn as loud and as long as possible. All night instead of sleeping your eyes are fixed on the widescreen woundering what the hell the driver is thinking whilst overtaking a bus on a blind corner not even bothering to drop down a gear to pick up revs to speed past instead just chugging past praying nothing is coming the other way. However we arrived in Hoi An safe and sound but feeling like death (again). Hoi An was a lovely old town but that is all can be said really, we didnt do much just wondered around, however there were plenty of shops that could whip you up a tailor made suit in a day or 2. However we faught the temptation and gave it a miss.

Another bus journey this time only 5 hours took us to Hue, another town with old temples to look around, again that was about all we did, walk around looking at temples. With our activites being not up to much over the last week or so we decided to head to Hanoi the capital were we could plan a trip tekking in Sapa and a trip to halong bay where we could kayak around the thousands of small islands. However to get up there, you guessed it, involved another 14 hour bus journey. We were so looking forward to it......not! This journey had its own little story also, with the roads being fine and the driver not wanting to beep at every little thing it started off ok and you could get alittle sleep untill the other bus driver (they normally have 2) came and spread out on the back row to go to sleep, we were on the 2 seats just in front of the back row, this would have been fine apart from the fact that he absolutly stunk!!! I am not just talking about a little smell, this was horrible, smelly feet bad BO this guy must not have washed for ages. It was that bad hayley had tissue shoved up her nose to help combat the smell. luckily he only stayed there for an hour before moving back to the front of the bus.

So again we arrived in Hanoi looking and feeling like death, only to be confronted with mayhem. This city is the most compact city ever, the roads are full with motorbikes, and the pavements are full with motorbikes, you have to walk on the road coz there is no room on the pavement, crossing the road is a whole new ball game, its not stop look left and right and go when it is clear, it is never clear even in the early hours of the morning, it is more like get half way, let them dodge you then get 3/4 of the way and stop again then go for it.

Basically we could be arsed to hang around, we looked at trekking in Sapa but what the trip was just wasn't worth the money so gave that a miss. We gave the idea of halong bay ago but couldnt be bothered again to spend a lot of money on it so just decided to do it in a day instead of 3. This proved to be a good idea the trip was not fantastic, you could almost say boring, a beautiful place but we could understand our guide so it was boring, to top things off we had a massive rat on our boat where we had just eaten, then at night, again when we had just eaten we saw another rat on the bar trying to get pissed on jack daniels.

All in all we had had enough of veitnam and decided to leave for Loas and spend our money on more exciting things. The north of nam had been a bit of a disapointment for us, but you cant expect everywhere to be fantastic.

This time instead of the hellish bus journey that would have taken the best part of 48 hours we decided to fly. The flight was 55 minutes long on a nice little plane called Fokker 70. To travel like that felt so good after all them bus journeys.

So we are now in Vientiane the capital of Laos. To say it is the capital it is quiet, peaceful and very cheap a pleasant change from veitnam. We went out for a curry, and for one starter, 2 curries, 1 rice, 2 naans and 2 beers came to very expensive price of $7, 3 pound 50 to you lot.

So you dont have to worry even though our money is coming to an end we are eating very very well. We have lots of exciting things planned for loas, the first being tubbing down a river for my birthday getting pissed at the make shift bars on the river, then elephant trekking, then living in a treehouse wiv the gibbons and monkeys for 3 days.

so lots still to look forward to and for you to read about when we have done them.

ian and hayley