Hi all,

Firstly, thanks for all of your messages, e-mails, texts and calls of congratulations over our engagement. They were all very touching. We have been pretty busy since the event. We moved onto Hoi An from Hue and, as our message stated, purchased as much as we could carry (including the extra bag that we also bought!). We left Hoi An for the warmer climes of Nha Trang - a fairly relaxed beach resort. Our first act on arrival was to head to the post office, realising that the additional baggage from Hoi An was ridiculous. We left 12kg and plenty of dollars lighter (Fox - this is all heading your way, thanks for that). Nha Trang was fairly laid back, we did a bit of sunbathing and sightseeing. We also headed out to monkey island, so named for its colony of "wild" monkeys. These things were truly terrifying as they find tourist handouts much easier to live on than local fruit. Therefore, they basically act like a group of midget bag snatchers. Two hours of this was enough and we headed back.

On our way to purchasing a bus ticket out of Nha Trang we had the most fortunate of encounters. A smooth talking local, Minh, pulled up to us and started the usual patter (where you from? how long you been in vietnam? etc) but, seconds away from the polite brush off, started to describe a journey through the countryside, away from tourists in the "real vietnam". He identified himself as an 'easy rider' - one of a group of enterprising, english speaking, vietnamese locals who take the odd tourist around the central highlands on the back of their motorbikes.

We decided to give it a shot and so the following day met Minh and his two side kicks, Teo and Phouc, at a cafe at 8 in the morning. For the next 3 days we sat on the back of Teo and Phouc's bikes and made our way from Nha Trang to Dalat. On the way we stopped at a variety of random sights ranging from a truly spectacular waterfall to a brick factory... A real insight into the way people live in this region. The first night we stayed in a basic resort thing near a waterfall and were told to go to bed early because as tourists we'd "be tired" (Caz - so reminicent of Mongolia), which in fact we were. The second night we stayed in a kind of traditional long house (kind of, because it was actually part of a tourist complex) on Lake Lac and saw a beautiful sunset. In the evening we were treated to a 'minority people' dance and drank some of their rice wine concoction which was almost undrinkable but we managed.

On the final day, we drove into Dalat late afternoon. Teo and Phouc decided to stay in Dalat for the evening before heading back to Nha Trang so we all went out for an extremely boozy dinner at a restaurant that served nothing but goat. And not the good bits either. We drank shots of banana wine (a kind of sweeter tequila subsitute home brewed and served in old evian bottles) and Stu even braved the goats blood version. Everytime someone at the table said 'Yo' we all had to skull. It was ugly. From there we headed to a Karoke bar, as you do, and sang a combination of vietnamese and beatles songs until 2am.

The next day was a write off.

Today we did a mountain bike tour around the highlands. Lots of near-vertical drops (or at least that's what it felt like) - Stu managed to vault himself over the handlebars at one point but escaped with a few scratches. It was tough going but we've decided to do it again tomorrow and cycle all the way to our next destination - Mui Ne. We've booked a beachside bungalow that looks quite nice, so looking forward to a relaxing couple of days.

Thanks again for all your messages. Looking forward to a few drinks with lots of you in Melbourne soon-ish.

Stu & Emma