Well I crossed the border today (and saw 3 motorbikes with crates of rats on the back - yep dinner) and am now sitting in a squashy internet cafe off the main drag of Phnom Penh.My last couple of days in Vietname were spent around Saigon (officially Ho Chi Minh City, but everyone calls it Saigon). That really an exciting place - the traffic is more insane than usual and crossing the street is an experience but apart from that there isn't a lot going on. We di...

It's been a while - I actually wrote a blog while I was in Hue, but decided to scrap it as it was quite offensive to the Vietnamese (more like my usual dialog for those who know me well). In the last couple of days, most of our group, myself included, has reached a sort of breaking point, or saturation with the Vietnamese people. Although the place is beautiful, and the people are friendly, it slowly wears you down having the same conversation 50 times a day th...

It occurred to me I haven't done a post that really did justice to Hanoi, so I'm going to put a few thoughts here. Hanoi is insane - everything I read about it turned out to be true and then some. Everythings got something to sell and isn't afraid to shove it in your face (although not at the same level as Sapa!) The words you here most commonly are 'Hey mister, you want postcard (no), you want book (no), marijuana (no), opium (no), boom boom (no)' - I hope ...

I've now been in Sapa for four days, we're about to leave the town to catch the overnight train back to Hanoi.I've seen so much it's really hard to put a coherent report together - so I'll just do my best.The first thing you notice in Sapa is the women from the Black H'Mong tribe whose village is about 5km from Sapa. They roam the streets selling their wares.We got in early in the morning and had breakfast in a resteraunt and a couple of t...

I can`t believe it`s ony been 2 days since my last update - it feels like ages! I don`t know if I`ll keep this rate of updates up for the entire trip, we`ll just see how it goes.Rest of Day 1 - HanoiMost of the tour group met at 6pm in the hotel and we had a meeting of the trip. Out tour leader Hung, is great. He loves Vietnam, extremely knowledgable and has great English. The groups is myself, 4 Brits (Sarah, Glenn, Anne and Charlotte - I`m sharing with Glenn), ...