Sihanoukville, Cambodia, 26-30 July 2012

The three of us arrived in the seaside town of Sihanoukville after a short minibus trip from Kampot. We were expecting a bit of a tourist town centred around a few beaches, but we discovered something far more developed. Sihanoukville is like Ibiza, with dozens of bars, most Western run, serving up cheap beer and full English breakfasts all day and night. We stayed at a place called Monkey Republic for less than a London pint in our own bungalow with en-suite. We wandered down to the closest beach that afternoon, and were a little shocked; the bars all dominated the beach, stretching all along, and covering the sand in front of the bars with their own seats and sunloungers leaving pretty much no room to lay down between the end of the bar and start of the sea. If you bought a drink in a bar it was free to use the sunloungers, so we milked a couple of cans of coke and topped up our decreasing tan. Jen however fancied a bit of shade after a while and sat a chair away under a brolly, but this made her look like she was on her own and the ladies coming around offering manicure/pedicure/threading/massage wouldn't leave her alone! Was quite funny to a point, but when they perched on her seat and wouldn't listen to her firm "no thank you", she was forced to get a bit ruder to get them to go away. We sat down at another bar as the sun went down and enjoyed some 50c beers.
After some Western grub at our hostel bar, we decided to give the impersonation cinema (it was a room with a big tv rigged up to a network drive packed with movies) across the road and watched The Help.
The next morning the clouds didn't want to budge, but it was still bright and warm. We wandered around, played bananagrams in the bar, drank ice coffees and beer, and finished the day watching the sun go down on the beach again. A lazy day, and the most productive bit being Jo skyping Lou and her niece and nephews!
The next morning the sun had come back out proper, so we got a tuk-tuk to Otres Beach, about 7km away. This was a great move as it had some of the same style bars on a bigger beach, but nowhere near the number of people or sellers offering sunglasses/bracelets/massage/pedicure, and the surf wasn't so violent so you could chill out in the sea a bit more. We spent a happy few hours in the sun when a huge black rain cloud started to envelope the beach, so we went into the bar for grub. A little later we our tuk-tuk picked us up and took us back. It was Jens last evening with us, so we found a nice Italian place and had a few drinks afterwards watching some Olympics. I eventually managed to skype Vegas late that night too after a month of trying and failing.
We got up early next morning to see Jen off on her bus. She got picked up by a tuk-tuk, and there was very little proper 'goodbye', but we'll see each other in 2 months anyway, so no bother. She set off for the bus to Phnom Penh, and a flight the following day to Bali - a place on our original itinerary, but that was soon scratched off when we realised how far our money would stretch.
The weather was still a bit pants, so we watched some "How I Met Your Mother", played bananagrams, and went back to the bar showing the Olympics, where we drank beer for hours watching cycling, swimming, rowing and gymnastics. We finished off the evening by wandering down to the market for some cheap dinner with the locals.
We waited until morning to make the decision to stay or go as we didn't want to spend another day sat indoors if the weather was pants, and alas, the clouds closed in, so we packed and had brekkie where a dog walked up and peed on my bloody bag! That wasn't even the worst bit, as I then knew that other dogs would smell it and want to mark ME as their territory, even though I tried to clean it with Windowlene - the only thing they had behind the bar -  and sure enough, first stop we made on the bus a german sheepdog was sniffing around me! Anyway, we were off and away, back to Phnom Penh.

Kampot, Cambodia, 24-26 July 2012

A little minibus took us the few hours to Kampot along with a very unhappy couple who were picked up from the same guesthouse as us, an hour and a half before us while we were still in bed.
On arrival Kampot seemed a bit quiet and run down, with the skies looming dark and heavy. Some hawkers trying to get commission from hotels met us, but they wouldn't listen to our need for a triple room, so we just ignored them. It then typically started to rain, so Jo and Jen stayed in a cafe and had a cup of tea while I went hotel hunting. Not far away I found a huuuuuge room for well in budget.
Kampot is a very quaint little place, but looked to be well out of season and having a lot of work done. A big market in the square is still being built/refurbished, and lots of building work was going on all around. This didn't inspire us much, and coupled with the bad weather, things weren't looking good. We found somewhere cheap and really good to eat and bumped into the German girl we wandered around the paddy fields of Yuanyang in China with, but she was anything but pleased to see us for some reason so we gave up even making polite conversation as she obviously wasn't bothered and left her to it. Jo and I then wandered around exploring the town a bit and found a nice little cafe/bakery to sit and play Bananagrams for a bit. That evening we found a nice little place to play some pool, drink some happy-hour beers and have some decent grub.
The next morning the rain had subsided from the downpour overnight, so we went out for breakfast where I chose to have steak and chips (I'm on holiday! I'm allowed!). Jen then decided to stay around the town wandering about as she still felt crappy, and Jo and I rented a motorbike. The joy of having a bike licence is I can ride manuals which are cheaper to rent! We went off across the river and up towards some rapids. We then pulled in to take some pictures and a shower opened up so we had a drink in a shack which was actually a womans living room/kitchen. The rain didn't last long and we continued up to see the rapids. We actually went straight past and I ended up riding around a hydro-electric dam, but we figured we really shouldn't be there, so we went back down to the rapids. It was really more of a fast flowing river, but was a bit of a locals highlight as there were lots of elevated wooden platforms with little roofs, with locals sat in having picnics and teenagers tubing a short way down the river. We headed back to town, with Jo shooting lots of pictures over my shoulder, and had some lunch. From there we rode around town, found a market, but was a local one full of car parts, kitchen appliances and food, so we headed back to find Jen, said hello and then went back over the bridge to do some more exploring. Before we knew it we were in the middle of nowhere, bouncing over the bumpy, bloody red track, paddy fields and water buffalo flanking us as far as we could see. Was great fun riding it, and beautiful scenery to boot. I did go a little further off-piste, and ended up riding along a sandy beach on the rivers edge on the way home.
That afternoon and night was the same as the day before; cake, coffee and beer with Bananagrams, followed later by cheap beer and good food on the riverside again!
In the morning we had just enough time for a quick breakfast before it was time to catch the bus to Sihanoukville!

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 21-24 July 2012

Our bus to Phnom Penh was a pleasant surprise. The seats were huge, with adjustable leg rests, and acres of legroom. We were supposed to leave at 2pm and arrive at 8pm, but of course that was wrong, we were picked up a little late then dropped off at gone 10pm. Luckily Jen had arrived that afternoon, so she had a guesthouse sorted for the three of us. I somehow managed to barter for a tuk-tuk despite the fact we were miles from anywhere to stay and with no other way of getting to the centre. The room Jen had booked was recommended in LP, but it was pretty crappy, with dirty towels, windows that wouldn't close, and big ventilation holes in the walls letting all the mozzies in, so we moved on the next day. We went in search of some breakfast and somewhere else to stay and found a really nice place called Fancy Guesthouse, and after Jo was let loose on him we had a cheap room. She's got very good at bartering now, so she does most of it for the rooms!
As it was Jens birthday, we let her choose what to do. Understandably she didn't want to see the killing fields or anything like that, so we went for a 'Seeing Hands' massage done by blind people. When we came out Jo was grinning ear-to-ear with how relaxed she was, whereas Jen and I were battered and bruised. It was a good massage I got, but I think they just pick and choose what type of massage to give, and the bloke I got must have thought "I'm going to make this bloke hurt". He spent a couple of minutes with all of his weight going through his elbow into my lower back! Real pro though; left no bruises! Afterwards we went in search of cake as you always have cake on your birthday, and I never found one on mine. We walked along the river and found a bakery and picked our cakes then were told to take a seat upstairs. When we got up there, the whole place was glistening white with floor to ceiling glass along the whole frontage, and a massive sofa/cushioned platform to sit on. We had tea and coffee with our cake and sang 'Happy Birthday'. It was then decided that we'd go to the cinema that night as it was showing 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', so whilst Jen went for a little lay down (she hadn't eaten properly for a few days and was still a bit woozy and don't think the headless dog on the market we saw that morning helped) Jo and I went in search of the cinema to get tickets. To follow tradition, our map was wrong, very wrong, and although we got to walk past the palace, silver pagoda, independence monument and lots of other nice places, after an hour and over 3 miles, we discovered the cinema was definitely not where the map showed it. We then found another map which had the cinema on it again, this time only two streets from our guesthouse, so we got a tuk-tuk back to the centre and arranged for the same guy to pick us up the next day to take us to the museum, killing fields and the russian market. When we got in, Jo swapped places with Jen, and Jen and I went off in search of tickets and some grub. We found the cinema easily as well as a nice little place serving 35p beer and good food. When we returned to the cinema a little later, we discovered it was actually the English owners hard-drive rigged up to a projector, showing pirate movies and dvds, but done really well. He'd soundproofed the room, set up a proper sound system, laid out some mattresses and loads of cushions on stepped levels for seating, and only used really high quality pirate movies. He'd even shown trailers for films coming to his cinema soon, one of which was a BBC show. After the fim, the girls were tired out, so we just headed home.
The 23rd started with a bargain buffet brekkie we found on our ramblings the day before, and then a tuk-tuk to the museum, which had previously been S-21 the security prison of Khmer Rouge, and prior to that a school. It held nothing back, with pictures of the last 14 people found badly tortured and dead in the prison, and those prisoners shackles and beds still unmoved from where they were found. There were classrooms divided up into tiny 800mm x 2000mm cells, and bloody handprints on the walls. An incredibly horrific place, where in total 10,000 prisoners passed through before being sent to the killing fields, and an estimated 20,000 children were taken from and also killed. Remarkable how one mans paranoia could take things so far. There were also testimonies and statements of some of the prisoners. One is from an Australian who was held, tortured and killed. His handwritten statement states his history of birth and education and where he was captured. This was then typed up by someone else to include fictitious statements about the CIA and strange resistant sentences like "the CIA have sent me... And will never stop sending agents here". A lot of the prisoners in the latter 2 years of the Khmer Rouge rule were actually members who would be at work one day and suddenly told to report elsewhere, only to be blindfolded and chained and tortured until they admitted whatever minor fictitious crimes they were told to have committed. A very sad place, and even sadder that the heads of the regime never truly were punished, and at their ages probably never will be properly.
From one contemplative place to another, we moved onto the Killing Fields. They are about 20km out of town, and are scarily smaller in scale than I expected. The mass graves are everywhere, a lot not exhumed, but some are the size of the serving box on a tennis court, and had upwards of 600 people in them. A terrible place with one really terrible tree which I won't write about.
We went back to town and to the Russian market, which didn't seem very Russian, just lots of stalls in a maze all under one roof. Jen got a bag made of cement bags, and I got another wife-beater, then we headed back. We were all a bit quiet, and Jo was quite short and ill-tempered, so we went for dinner in a place with cheap beer and $1 tacos. A bit more perked up but not enough to go out, we booked our bus to take us to Kampot the next morning and went back home to pack.

Saigon, Vietnam, 19-21 July 2012

We arrived in Saigon in perfect time for the heavens to open and soak us. Luckily, Jo and I still had our fetching polka-dot ponchos from our motorbike tour. A bolshy woman built like a brick shithouse met us from the bus and offered some hotel very close by and a fair price. She then led 6 of us (Jo and I, James and Lisa, and Nick and Gaz) down a labyrinthine set of pathways to a crappy looking place we'd never find, so we said thanks but no thanks and wandered off in the rain. Back on the main street we poked our heads in a couple of places, then the same woman came back and led us into a brand new hotel. Rooms were good and included brekkie so we were sold. It was already 5pm by this point so we arranged to meet at 7 for dinner, and Jo and I ventured off to arrange a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels the following day and our bus to Phnom Penh. For dinner we also met up with three girls that the others had met a few times along the way and who James was smitten with. We had a good few beers, finished dinner then Lisa and Jo headed back and the rest of us went in search of drink. A group of 7 tentative westerners in the street proved to be like chocolate bar at weight-watchers; at one place two guys from the same bar but different floors actually started fighting over us! All the bars we went near were a bloody rip-off though, and offers like "buy 1 get 3 free" actually meant buy a bottle of 50 quid vodka and get 3 bottles of beer free. We ended up in a beer hoi type place on little plastic chairs on the pavement drinking 26p bottles of ice cold Saigon beer, surrounded by dozens of tables of locals and others travellers. Spent quite a while having the craic, then moved onto a little bar, where I had a final beer and left concious that I only had a few hours until I had to be up to get on a tour bus. Following morning I didn't feel great, but no rest for the half-cut, and felt better when two saffer girls in front of us were in a much worse state. The bus stopped about 40km into the 60 to the Cu Chi tunnels at a factory and warehouse set up by the government for sufferers of physical disabilities due to US use of Agent Orange in the war. It made loads of handicrafts and quite a lot of intricately hand decorated vases, crockery and titbits. Was very good to see these people, a lot of whom had no legs, able to lead normal lives. I did wonder what ironic affects the chemicals they used in the factory were having on them though. We arrived in the sweltering area of Cu Chi where the Viet Cong hid and built 250km of tunnels only 60km from the US occupied Saigon. We were shown around by our batty old Vietnamese man of a guide, Ky, who would say "ooh la la", "ay ay ay", and "you can imagine" over and over. Lovely bloke though and very enthusiastic with his war stories (he was a student, too young to be called up to fight in the war). We were shown lots of booby-traps, including a brutal looking tiger trap, and secret hatches used to hide away quickly, barely bigger than an A4 piece of paper. We then saw some weapons and there was a shooting range with lots of guns, all either rifles or machineguns. I wanted to have a go, but there was a minimum number of bullets you could buy, so I gave it a miss for now. We then went into the actual tunnels themselves. There are only a few still accessible, most having collapsed, and the one we went in was made bigger for tourists. Despite this, I still almost got stuck, and was unable to walk in a crouch at all and resorted to walking in a pressup position. We got out and went to try some typical guerilla lunch. This was cassava, skinned and boiled so it was like a boiled potato (and tasted a lot like) with a powder made of ground peanuts, sugar and pepper. The kitchens they built underground were very clever, with the smoke going through three or four chambers to filter out as much smoke as possible before coming out of the ground 25m away from the kitchen itself. We got back on the bus and awoke back in Saigon next to the War Remnants Museum, so we hopped off. There were lots of captured US planes, helicopters, tanks and artillery, and a section on the prisons used against the VC including lots on the torture they suffered at the hands of the French, American and South Vietnamese. As this is Asia, they don't hold back on details and lots of the pictures and stories were horrific. Inside it only got worse, with various sections torture, interrogation of civilians, chemical agents and the various tactics (mostly scorched earth) used by the Americans. There was one piece on former US senator Kelleys actions in the war. I won't go into it, but I don't know how he can sleep at night. We finished our tour looking at the effects Agent Orange has had on the subsequent generations, which had bottled embryos that had been stillbirths. A very graphic exhibition, but you can't shy away from what has been done and so recently. After our harrowing visit to the museum we went in search of a cinema to watch Brave and cheer us up. I had a little map marked up by the guy working in the hotel reception, but he obviously didn't know, so we just walked around asking people. We found our way to a mall, and then discovered it had a cinema in the business part of the building next door. Very strange and wasn't showing Brave so we left. I then took us along a road I had a hunch about and found the cinema we were looking for. But it wasn't showing Brave either. Bugger. So we walked home, now totally knackered. We spent the evening chilling out, then went out for dinner and to the night markets, wandering home through the park packed with couples dancing and little kids playing. The 21st was our last morning in Vietnam. We packed up, ate the crappy breakfast on offer (I say on offer, but the only option was omelette and bread, so the true option was eat or don't eat), then went to post postcards, and take some last pictures, then had a decent lunch before the bus to Phnom Penh at 2pm. Suddenly Vietnam was over all too soon, and although we didn't feel we'd missed out anything, we still were sad to leave as it meant only two countries left and a step closer to going home.

Dalat, Vietnam, 17-19 July 2012

We got off the bus in little Dalat, Jo with a minor concussion from smashing her head into the ceiling from a hitting a pothole at speed, around lunchtime. The hotel we were dropped outside had a cheap room, included breakfast and was a minutes walk to the centre, so we didn't venture far in search. The guy working there was very friendly and tried to flog us his fake Easy Rider tour. We were quite taken with the idea, but went in search of the city first before deciding. We found a dirty market selling every ingredient possible in every state of decomposition from the smell, then the lake with it's romantic 'swan' pedalos. We couldn't resist and climbed in our floating chicken, sorry, I mean 'swan' and had a lovely hour on the lake. We went off in search of a drink and then onto an official Easy Rider cafe. We got chatting to a couple of the guys who run it in Dalat. They do long trips up and down the country, or just daytrips around the countryside. They were set up almost 20 years ago, and have been such a success that lots of people try and claim the name Easy Rider. The guys we spoke to were the real deal. The big selling point was they were the same price as the guy in the hotel, but with the bonus of letting me ride a real bike instead of a moped. We booked up for the following day, and got some directions to the crazy house. After a 10 minute walk, we got to the house designed and built by a female Vietnamese architect to bring tourism to the city. It took her a long time to get built because of the look and design, but her dad was a famous politician so that must have helped. The place is currently having a big extension put on the side, and the whole lot looks a bit like if Salvador Dali made The Animals of Farthing Wood. There are lots of rooms with big beds in that you can stay in, but during the day is just for people to look at. I would love the idea of having something similar built in England, but it would never happen. At one point there's a walkway only 500mm wide with sides about the same height, no handrail and a 30ft drop below. Quite scary for those not fond of heights I'd imagine. I was well chuffed as there were no barriers up to stop you walking into the extension parts. I had a good mooch around, then we took some more pictures and left as it started to get dark. We wandered back, bumped into the Raptors who were two lads on my boat in Halong Bay, then had a lovely dinner in a very slow service but charming restaurant that wouldn't look out of place in the middle of nowhere in Northern France. When we eventually tumbled into bed I discovered that though we'd only been in Dalat for a few hours, we'd taken 130 photos already. The next morning we were up early for a good breakfast before our motorbike tour. We met our guide, a guy called Quan, but known as Buffalo due to his size (and as we'd later discover, his appetite). I was shown to a little Honda CB125, and Jo and I were both handed helmets you wouldn't let your child use on a skateboard. Jo was pretty scared, but as soon as we were out of the city she was loving it, sat behind me taking pictures as we sped through the countryside. We first stopped at the Dragon Pagooda which true to its name had lots of dragon statues, then onto the valley to see all the farms of stepped fields below us growing strawberries, avacados, spring onions, pumpkins and more. We then stopped at a hill that after a 20min hike took us up to views over the whole valley and Dalat. A little further on we stopped at some greenhouses where they grow flowers. These weren't as high-tech or vast as the ones in Holland, but were developed by a Dutchman who came over years ago, married a Vietnamese girl, and set it up as he saw the ground and climate conditions were perfect. Was quite cool, especially the rows upon rows of them made out of bamboo. En route to the coffee plantation, we stopped to try some red coffee beans, which are quite sweet, then another stop to see hundreds of huge spiders who had made a home between a row of trees and some power cables above. It seems a lot of mozzies and flys must be around as these spiders were easily 4inches in diameter, and all pretty fat. Jo freaked out a bit and almost leapt off the bike into the middle of the road. We got to the coffee plantation where a family live and work. They grow the coffee beans, then feed the red beans to a load of weasels they keep who love them, but can't digest the actual beans themselves, just the skins. The weasel poo is then harvested, cleaned and dried and used to make an expensive but quite smooth coffee! They also made normal coffee, just by drying out the beans, and with the dried out skins they're left with, they burn them to heat pots of rice and make rice wine! Nothing goes to waste, and the result is some 'happy water' at about 75% proof! We sat and tried some coffee, then rode off to the elephant waterfall. The elephant waterfall looks pretty cool from the top, but the best bit is climbing down and getting behind the bottom of the falls. We teetered across the wet slippery rocks and got soaked in the backdraught of the spray, then back up to another temple built above the falls. I'm not sure why this temple was so grand, but it had a couple of Buddha with many hands, the three Buddhas representing past, present and future, and outside a huge happy Buddha (the fat, bald Buddha sat on the floor laughing). By the time we'd done all of this it was about 1, and we were starving, so we went for lunch and Buffalo ordered a set menu for the 3 of us to share. There was loads of food, including; frog in banana leaf that looked and tasted like a really strong coarse English sausage, beef with vegetables and ginger, various spring rolls, morning glory (a green vegetable wilted and lightly pan fried with some pork fat and garlic), chicken, pork belly chopped into bitesize pieces, fish in an oily broth, and loads of little crabs, lightly fried. Oh, and a massive bowl of rice of course. Was lovely food, and the frog and the crab especially good. I was worried it was going to cost a fortune, but only 45k VND each (about £1.30). After our hearty lunch it was onto a silk factory where they harvest the silk worms, boil and spin the silk thread, spin it again to thin it out, then again to dry it, then there were a few looms making doyleys and table cloths and the like. There were also ladies hand sewing pictures in silk. The pictures, depending on size take 2 to 5 months to complete! We left the silk factory fascinated and educated.   Next we stopped at a small family house with a lean-to made of tarpaulin under which the family made brooms out of a coarse straw harvested further into the mountains, and then a little further on again at another small house where big round shallow baskets, a bit like upside-down jar lids, were made of woven cut down bamboo. They are then taken and sold at market for use at drying coffee, tea leaves or chillis. Whilst we were there the mother of the house cleared seats for us and made us some artichoke tea (we'd never heard of it either, but it tasted really good!). We asked Buffalo if we should pay for the tea or something, but he said no, it was just the woman being friendly. Felt very humbled by this, as they worked in their one room house, they would still give the little they have to strangers. We rode on and stopped at the coffee plantation again for a bit to let the rain that was falling in the valley ahead of us clear before continuing, then stopped briefly at a minority village, where one of the 50 odd minorities of Vietnam live, with their own customs and dialects. We carried on and soon found the rain, so we stopped for some sexy polka-dot ponchos, then ploughed on back to Dalat. Our last stop was the old railway, built when the French still occupied, with steamtrains and cogs to get the trains up and down the mountains. We got back into the cafe and had a coffee to warm us up (due to its altitude, Dalat is quite cool, and the rain only made it worse), thanked Buffalo for a great day, and went back to the hotel to chill out. We lazily ate at the same place for dinner as the previous night, then packed up ready to get the bus early the next morning to Saigon!

Nha Trang, Vietnam, 11-17 July 2012

Arrived in Nha Trang bright and very early after an ok nightbus with a driver with no fear. After a bit of wandering about asking prices and looking at rooms, we finally found a triple room for a good price in the hotel next door to the one Liv and her friends were staying in. We found some breakfast and headed back to the room so Jo and Jen could have a kip. The afternoon was spent searching up and down the beach for Liv and co but never found them. We arranged to meet Liv later on in a bar, but we got there early to see them all walking back giggling like schoolgirls after an afternoon on cocktails, so no wonder we never found them on the bloody beach! We decided to meet after dinner, but again we never found them, so after a few more drinks and lots of poking our heads in doorways we retired. The next morning as we looked for some breakfast we bumped into Marc and Patricia who we met in the 4000 Islands in Laos. We swapped stories and advice (they were going North and we were heading South) over breakfast then said our goodbyes again. We then wandered down to meet Liv and co at the beach in a certain spot, but we still nearly missed them; they weren't on the beach but by the pool of a bar on the beach. Spent the day getting crispy, then Jen and I went to find the bus booking office as she had decided she wanted to go off on her own for a bit and meet up together again in Cambodia on her birthday. She wasn't keen on going to Dalat, so she would forge on to Saigon, then fly to Bangkok, then go overland back to Cambodia and meet us in Phnom Penh in 9 days time. That night was our last evening with Liv, but her friends wanted to eat somewhere else, so the four of us (Liv, Jen, Jo and I) went for a set menu curry that Marc and Patricia had recommended that morning. Was great grub, and we went off to meet the other girls in a bar, but they weren't to be seen, so after a while we found them for Liv to get the key to the room, and we went off to another bar for more drinks (including free passionfruit daquaris for ladies) and Jo and Liv to have an emotional farewell. The next morning it was just the three of us suddenly. We did much the same as the previous day, going from pool to sunlounger to restaurant to bar to bed. The next morning we had to leave our hotel as Jen was leaving that evening, but the two of us couldn't now afford the hotel we were in. Lots more looking at rooms and bartering, and Jo found a lovely little place for USD10 for the room including breakfast. We shifted bags, spent more time by the pool, then had a decent meal before walking Jen to her nightbus to Saigon. Suddenly we were two again. We spent the following day in the now familiar holiday routine, and the day after that was my birthday and our last full day in Nha Trang. The only real difference was that we went in the sea (tempted to get the bus to another beach, but as the one on our doorstep was often mostly deserted, we didn't bother). Was a great and relaxing way to spend the day though, with a few drinks in the afternoon, back to the Indian place for dinner and more drinks! The following morning we were up at 6am so we had time to walk to the bus station and get on the bus to take us onto our penultimate stop in Vietnam; Dalat.

Hoi An, Vietnam, 8-10 July 2012

On arrival in Hanoi from Halong Bay, Jo, Liv, Jen and I met up for some grub before the nightbus to take us straight to Hoi An. The bus was obviously overbooked, and after a few people who had settled themselves in were removed as they were put on the wrong bus, we 4 took the last remaining beds. Jen at the back on a bank of 4, Jo and Liv on some singles, and me on a bank of 3 against the window next to an Aussie couple. 18 hours later, and after a coffee stop in Hue for an hour to change buses, we arrived in Hoi An. We were greeted to beautiful sunshine and clear skies and a free minibus to take us into the centre. Liv departed to take a motoman to her hotel that was already booked to meet her friends. The first hotel we tried was in our budget and got us a very nice triple room, so no buggering about required (it even had a pool!). Jos friend Izzy and her boyfriend Ross were also in Hoi An at the time, and we arranged to meet up with them. We found their hotel around the corner from ours, had a couple of drinks together, and then they had a second fitting at their tailor. Instead of wandering off, we went with them to check it out and I immediately found myself being "measured" by a very friendly woman. The "measuring" seemed to consist of fondling, squeezing, and pinching of unmentionables to the tune of "big banana", "ooh, big strong man" and other phrases that I would not have expected my girlfriend to laugh at (I'm sure she wouldn't if it were a barmaid or something, but as it was a tailor it was ok apparently). I had a look at the stuff Ross had had made and was really impressed. You obviously have to choose the higher quality fabrics to make it worth getting made which pushes the price up, but even shopping on the most expensive rail and with silk lining, and two double-cuff shirts of REALLY nice material, my lot came to $190 (just under £120). Jo saw Izzy in her suit, and couldn't resist getting a very nice evening jacket made up too, though as she was only getting a jacket made she didn't get flossed with the tape measure like I did! Izzy and Ross were happy with their stuff and we all headed out for drinks again by the river. Hoi An is stunning, and the Old Town is even better viewed from the outside, so we sat drinking the local fresh beer which is about 400-450ml and 10-15p. To my surprise and great happiness Jo liked it too and began to develop a taste for beer! Her argument for it is that it's just as refreshing as water and about 1/5th the price! That night we all met up again together, this time all 9 of us. We had a couple of drinks, found a little place still doing food, then back to the bar for more drinks and watch Murray lose the Wimbledon Mens Final. Next day we mooched around looking at all of the French colonial architecture, brightly coloured boats and various temples. Before long we were back on the Fresh Beer by the river again. On the walk back Jo and I ended up in another tailors somehow. With the help of dozens of clothes catalogues and a laptop, we both had ourselves measured up for a winter coat each. Izzy and Ross had now moved on North to Hanoi, so it was 'just' the 7 of us for dinner that night. We eventually found somewhere which everyone was happy on, then wandered off in search of a late-opening bar. It was dead when we got there, so we took over the pool table and Jo took over as DJ. We got back to the room pretty late, but there seemed to be a party going on in the room next to us. Only 5 mins after we got in an angry little Vietnamese man was banging on their door, and about 20 people piled out. Our last morning was not to be a lie-in. We decided to go on the My Son trip which is a group of temple ruins about 50km out of the city. The ruins date back to 7th Century, but a lot were destroyed by the US in the 70's as they had no clue where the Viet Cong were, so they just bombed, burned and gassed EVERYTHING. We saw some lovely ruins and quite a few bomb craters but sadly our "English speaking guide" spoke some dialect of English that I'd definitely never heard of, so we wandered off by ourselves. That afternoon we did some final sightseeing in the Old Town, had our final fittings and picked up our new suits/jackets/shirts/coats, and a bit of a swim before boarding the bus to Nha Trang, this time with all 7 of us on board!