Good Morning Vietnam!! Tracey here....
Yes, we're still alive and since our last post (back in June!) we've been to a couple more countries...

After Phuket we took the dreaded night bus to Bangkok. We had heard the stories about the 'man in my bag' situation on the night buses, so had left nothing of value in our backpacks. The backpacks go in the compartment downstairs while we all sleep upstairs, and someone goes through every single bag and they steal anything they fancy!! Nothing was taken from our bags... all we had in them were our clothes and they'd be far too big for the Thais! Thank you Lonely Planet for the advice in our bible.
We arrived on Khao San Road in Bangkok at 6am in the morning. We had to wait a couple of hours for our room, so sat and had a coffee and watched the remenants from the night before straggle home (or carry on drinking) and watched two Thai girls fighting in the street - lovley!! We had quite a boozy time in Bangkok, especially as the World Cup Final and Wimbledon were on, and we HAD to stay up until the early hours to watch them in the pub. We met lots of people and had many laughs, and many hangovers!
Oh, and we did get to see the Grand Palace and the River too :-)

From Bangkok we took a bus out of Thailand and over into Cambodia. The border crossing was an experience. Once again we had heard that they stop the bus before you get to the border and ask you to pay over the odds for them to go and get your Visa for you. We had decided we'd get our own Visas as we didn't want to pay more than it should be... we were getting a little bit brave after two months of travelling.
So we were pointed in the general direction by the bus people, and we picked up our backpacks and headed for the border. They had told us we might queue for ages, we might get scammed along the way, blah, blah, blah. But it was pretty smooth sailing. Until we then had to wait for the bus to pick us up the other side.
The bus company were annoyed that we'd gone to get our own Visas so they made us wait for ever before they put us on a bus. Hey ho!

We arrived in Siem Reap unscathed though, and a few dollars extra in our pockets.
Siem Reap is a lovely old french colonial town, with the main attraction being Angkor Wat nearby. We were kidnapped by a tuk-tuk driver, who planned our days for us - without giving us much choice, but he took us to see everything there was to see over 4 days (We think we probably paid him enough money to feed his family and his next door neighbours for a year!). But he was very sweet and would bring an ice box and water for us on his tuk-tuk. We saw pretty much ALL of the temples, which are beautiful, but by day 3 we were completely templed out! He also took us to Ton le Sap Lake where they have a floating Village... pretty amazing! They have a floating petrol station, school, basketball court, billiards hall... but they are all very poor, and it was quite an eye opener.

From Siem Reap we went to the Capital Phnom Penh, which we weren't very taken with, and quickly moved on to the beach at Sihanoukville. Unfortunately it rained most of the time and I had a stinking cold, so again we didn't hang around.

We caught a bus to Vietnam 4 weeks ago, and have to say that we LOVE Vietnam. The countryside, the people and in particular Jungle Beach, have been amazing!!

We started off in Saigon, where we celebrated my birthday. We started celebrating on the eve of my birthday with a few bottles of wine, followed by a curry and then birthday cake in our hotel reception. The next day, very hung over we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels - not such a good idea!! It was hot and we had to try and concentrate and listen to the tour giude, walking through the jungle and trying out the tunnels (whcih were tiny and pitch black - not good with a hangover). When we got back and showered - feeling a bit better we headed for the old Post Office so I could call home, then we went to this lovely cafe where we had french cheeses and meats and a bottle of chilean red wine (yes, we were feeling much better by then!)

From Saigon we took a 2 day trip out to the Mekong Delta with a tour group, and did a homestay which was fantastic. We stayed with a family on the river front in little palm leaf huts, and went over to the family house to cook and have dinner with them. The next morning we got up at 5.30am to take a walk through the village with the host to see village life. We had so much fun! We had to cross a little river to get to the market, by standing up on a little row boat.

Back to Saigon, and then on to Mui Ne, a beach resort which wasn't so lovely. Although the walk up the Fairy Springs was very pretty.

From there on to Da Lat which is up in the highlands where the weather was very cool... we actually needed long sleeves! Da Lat was also very beautiful and we took an 'Easy-rider' motorbike trip around the beautiful countryside. We wished we could have afforded to do the rest of our trip up through Vietnam with them. Maybe another time :-)

Nest stop, Nha Trang. Another beach resort. Nicer than Mui Ne, and we did a boat trip to do some snorkelling - which was good. Whilst in the Mekong Delta we'd heard a french guy on our bus talking about a place just north of Nha Trang called Jungle Beach. He said it was the best beach in Vietnam and that it was a really great place. We're forever listening in to other peoples conversations to find out where everyone has been and where they recommend. So we decided to check out Jungle Beach, and we were so glad we did.

Jungle beach is Paradise! The accommodation are palm fringe huts with beds and mosquito nets. There are plenty of showers and toilets dotted around the grounds (with doors on!) and then you get to the beach... WOW what a beach. The sand is white and soft (and very hot by 9am!) and the sea is the most crystal clear sea I have ever seen anywhere! You get breakfast, lunch and dinner included, as well as lemon juice (which is very welcome after a morning baking on the beach). We spent our 3 days there swimming in the sea, sleeping under the shade on the beach, snorkelling at 6am in the morning (before the sun gets too hot), eating lots of lovely vietnamese food, chatting with all the other people staying there, sitting by the fire on the beach after dinner and swimming in the sea at night to see the phosphorous lighting up as we moved through the sea.... you can't ask for much more! We were so sad to leave and it felt like we had a holiday within a holiday. Thank you French guy on the bus!!!

We then caught the night bus from Jungle beach to Hoi An. The journey was horrible! As we were the last to be picked up (from a petrol station on Highway one???) we had the last two sleeper beds which were right at the back of the bus and in between 3 french people. Poor Linds was spooning with two of the french guys, I was slightly luckier and was next to the window, so only had one stranger to spoon with! Being at the back was also very bumpy, so it was very difficult to get any sleep. We were glad to arrive in Hoi An at 6am the next morning and find a hotel room that we could check straight into.

Hoi An is a beautiful old town, with pretty little streets of shops and restaurants and art galleries - all with laterns hanging outside. There are a lot of tailors and shoe makers, and we went a bit mad and had some shorts and shoes made (very cheap though). We could have shopped for days if only we had the money and the space in our bags! We did a cooking class while we were there with a very sweet vietnamese girl. We had a french guy cooking with us (not one of the spooners) and so in true Floyd style we ordered up a bottle of the local red wine to drink whilst cooking. Before we started though we took a trip to the market to buy some ingredients and find out about some of the local produce. The class was great, and we had a lot of fun and laughs... the food was pretty good too, even if we do say so ourselves!

Once again we were very sad to be leaving such a lovely place, but our visas are expiring soon and we need to move onwards and upwards. We arrived in Hue yesterday. Hue is situated on the Perfume river (sounds very romantic doesn't it) and has an old walled citadel and imperial palace. We've just got back from a tour of the city and of some of the tombs of the past kings.

Tomorrow we move on up to Hanoi. A 14 hour night bus journey! We're just praying we aren't the last on again!

We'll try not to leave it so long before the next update... and apologies for the lack of photos. These computers we use in hotel lobbies just aren't up to downloading photos. They take forever and we have hundreds!!!

Next country is Laos and then back to Thailand for trekking in Chiang Mai... bye for now.

Love from Tracey and Lindsey xxxxx