Wishing you all a Happy Christmas - been an unusual day for us, warmer but quieter! Thanks for all your messages - it's really encouraging to have comments from home. We don't seem to be able to reply to each message personally .....maybe us or the technology but please keep them coming.

At this point, the half way stage, 110 days away, we sat down and worked out some fairly useless statistics..... And I must point out to the purists that these are rough estimates.... Not including all the small side excursions we calculate that we have travelled just under 25,000 miles broken down to 8 flights 10,000 miles 43 trains including 16 overnight 13,000 miles ( I think I can truly be called a train spotter now) 10 coaches 900 miles 4 ferries 190 m...

Vietnam...at last. It's hard to recall now how I imagined Vietnam would be but I'm pretty sure the real thing was better in every aspect. (Saw plenty of pet dogs - don't think I ate it - or even saw it on sale......thanks so much Mr Rhind for that story) Was raining when we first arrived at Hanoi airport but after an hour's taxi ride (bit worried by stories of taxi scams but we had no problem) into the Old Quarter, it was dry. That set the scene for our weather ...