Back Down To Earth

Third day back in the office today so time I think for a little reflection.

Firstly, was our trip really as good as I was making out all the way round?  Well, yes, it most definitely was.  

Highlights?

Far too many to settle on a top 3.

Bangkok - a great introduction to S.E. Asia.  Very modern in so many aspects but with the noise, the heat, the crazyness of the streets both roads and pavements.  Also great history and peace in the temples.  Combine that with a fantastic cuisine (even if my poor choices came back to haunt me later) and interesting nightlife and you simply couldn't get off to a better start on a trip like this.

Ho Chi Minh City - what a place.  One of the most vibrant cities I've ever visited.  Watching the people of a rapidly developing country simply getting on with business was a privilege.  Replace cars for motorbikes too and you have a street level madness that makes Bangkok seem like a sleepy village, pure adrenaline.  

Mekong Delta - Cruising along such a massive river delta, watching the people who live their entire lives on the river, fascinating and extremely tranquil, a total contrast to the City elements of the trip.

Hoi An - An altogether too brief visit to a place of interesting narrow streets, a thriving tailoring trade, and the cheapest beer I've ever seen!  Any reticence on the approach from Da Nang quickly blown away by the old Hoi An town.  Unfortunately this area will be spoiled soon with a whole string of massive beach resorts, hopefully the UNESCO tag for the old town will be sufficient.

Hanoi - Another grower of a place.  I didn't think it possible that anywhere could be more manic than Ho Chi Minh, but a first venture out onto the streets of Hanoi proved an almost traumatic experience after the quiet of Hoi An.  However, a better selection of routes and a wider appreciation of the City and Hanoi showed itself to be every bit the capital of this up and coming country.

Hong Kong - Our visas lasted for 180 days.  Could've easily stayed for all of that.  OK, granted, we were staying in just about the best hotel we'd ever seen, but on top of that Hong Kong generates a very different type of energy than the other cities we'd visited.  It is of course an incredibly mature economy, back to cars instead of motorbikes for starters, and everyone appears to have a purpose and direction.  The architecture, while incredibly modern and not to everyone's taste, just simply can't be ignored and all perspective of size is lost.  I happen to love skyscrapers, so it all works for me!  At night, the spectacle of neon and the population taking to the streets (their appartments are all too small!) to simply live out their lives is just fantastic - TV, who needs it?

Length of Trip - 25 days is an amazing amount of time to travel when you're so used to a 14 day maximum and to spend 25 days in the uninterrupted company of my wife was, I say through crystal clear - not rose coloured - spectacles, a wonderful experience and one that I don't imagine will have the opportunity to be repeated for a very long time to come, which will be a great shame.  With no explanation as to why, because there isn't one, we both also felt that the trip felt like it lasted much longer.  Bangkok certainly seemed a whole world away from Hong Kong and even by Hoi An our illnesses were a dim and distant memory.

Downside?

There must be something, surely...

Being Ill - I certainly played down our illnesses at the time knowing full well that there was literally nothing anyone could do and while I was perhaps the closer to needing actual medical attention, looking back I was actually only ill for about 12 hours.  It weakened me for about another 24 hours but after that was completely back to normal.  Sarah's illness lasted longer, a few days, but while feeling rubbish, her strength of character allowed us to still fly from Cambodia to Vietnam and get out sightseeing the next afternoon.

Cambodia - Could easily have gone in the highlights section, but as our illnesses bookended our trip I feel our time there will always be tainted by how we were feeling at the time which is an incredible shame as I suspect Siem Reap will have changed completely even in the next 12 months.  As expected Cambodia was the least developed nation we visited but of course that's what we were there for.  That said, our hotel was up there with any resort hotel around and we will always be able to say we spent New Year's Eve 2008 in Cambodia - a completely surreal experience.

Length of Trip - Eh, wasn't that covered above?  25 days is too long/not long enough.  I dunno, something like that.  Fact of the matter is I didn't want to come home!  For once I wasn't alone, even Sarah who's first to jump on the plane and can't wait to get home was hesitant and felt like we could've stayed longer.  The travelling itself becomes what you do, it's not all about sitting by pools and relaxing either, we pounded the streets all day most days.  Indeed when I normally return to work after, say, a week off I find the first couple of walks into work a little harder than I remember - this week the 2 miles have been completed without even breaking sweat.  I'm actually fitter coming back than I was going!

Recommendation

Anybody who loves to travel, to experience cultures which are very different to our own and isn't afraid of a bit of dust and heat get yourself to S.E. Asia.  Any of it, all of it, as much as you can.  We missed out on Laos which hopefully will be redressed before it's too late.   What you must do is go sooner rather than later.  While Bangkok and Hong Kong are fantastic in themselves, the rest will catch up and then it'll be simply like taking a city break tour of Europe - interesting, but not real travel.

And finally...  Another thank you to everyone who read this and sent so many positive comments both to myself and Sarah while I was away.  It was a joy to write especially knowing that people were actually reading it!   Sarah read every single word before any of it was published to comment and ensure I'd got things right and for that I thank her wholeheartedly.

I think that's it!

Where next?  Suggestions?

Day 24/25 – Hong Kong to Manchester

January 17th / 18th 2009

Last day, and it's going to be a long one so we stay in bed as late as possible before packing for the final time.

Checking out bang on noon we take a walk around the electrical shops of Mong Kok before taking the MTR to Central and a trip up the Peak for one last look at the view. It's busy at the terminus, weekend of course which must make a difference but also it's a beautiful day weatherwise and the visibility from the top is even better than earlier in the week.

Back down the Peak and we stroll through Central to return to Kowloon on the Star Ferry, this brings us out on the front at Kowloon so we can once again admire the view as the sun goes down and lights come on Hong Kong side.

We return to our hotel for the final time, via a stop off at Sim City, an electricals bazarre in Mong Kok that I just can't resist, and get comfy in the lobby to wait for our transfer to the airport which arrives on time.

At Hong Kong airport, what a faff. Dropped off at Terminal 1, check in desks for Emirates are in Terminal 2 so we have to walk quite a way to get there only to find that once we have checked in we then have to get 2 internal trains to get back to Terminal 1 where our departure gate is situated.

Was cursing the Emirates check in staff as they put us in the middle 2 seats of the central 4 – which is about the worst place to be, however as it turns out I have nobody sitting next to me and while the armrests don't allow for genuine spreading out we're not quite so squashed in either. A genuine gripe though, we're boarded over an hour before the flight is due to leave. Now have been on a few flights previously where early boarding means early takeoff, but we actually take off late so we've been on the plane a good hour and a half before we actually move! Manage about 4 and a half hours sleep or so during the just short of 9 hour flight which is pretty good for me.

Sitting in Dubai airport, Emirates are at it again, our flight is 7:55am but they've started boarding at 6:30am. No chance this time, we leave it a bit.

Final flight passes without incident, not much sleep, an hour at the most so watched a couple of films and some TV.

Our final driver and guide waiting at the airport, father and mother-in-law, so amazingly not a single mishap from 7 destinations!

Home, sunny day, cold, back to the real world, unfortunately...

Day 23 – Hong Kong

January 16th 2009

Day of rest and relaxation...

Dim Sum for breakfast (plus a whole lot more) followed by some lazy reading before finally, after a few false starts, we hit the gym. The gym's on the 41st floor with panoramic views across Kowloon, I'm sure you would get used to the view eventually but for our short time here it's worth savouring every minute. An hour or so later, without pushing it too hard after a 4 week break from the gym, we go back to our room for some more lazy reading and a little room service to tide us over as we're not eating until 8pm tonight.

Next on the power relaxation agenda is our salt scrub and harmony massage. My first time on a massage table but it definitely won't be my last. The whole experience is amazing, we're in a couples room, i.e. our tables are side by side but there's not exactly any talking, too busy relaxing and just staying on the awake side of comatose. Overall our treatment lasts 90 minutes and it has to be the quickest 90 minutes of my life! We're then invited to rest in a contemplation room drinking jasmine tea while again looking out over the view, this time merely from the 40th floor. To cap things off we head up to the roof and have a dip in the outdoor jacuzzi. To be honest it's pretty chilly so we don't stay outside long. Back in our respective changing rooms and there's just time to savour the steam room, udon shower, and steam bath – a scorching 42 degrees with a warning to not stay in more than 15 minutes, I'm out after 10 anyway, lightly poached!

As this is our last night in Hong Kong we've decided to push the boat out for dinner and are booked in at the Fook Lam Moon restaurant which we understand to be one of the top Cantonese restaurants in Kowloon and after getting over the initial shock of the menu – cheapest bottle of wine £50 – we find some more reasonably priced and absolutely excellent fayre. As with Seasons of Hanoi, which seems a world away now, we end on a very high note. Sarah is also finally, on our last night, able to wear the dress she's carried all round S.E. Asia, so the evening couldn't be better. We get a taxi back to the hotel – after the driver takes us to the other Langham that is – and complete our last night with wine and jazz in the hotel bar.

Day 22 – Hong Kong

January 15th 2009

So we're into our third week and I have to say the travel and pounding of the streets is beginning to put a bit of a strain on the old legs, mum was right (yes, it does happen) to suggest that we'd need a holiday when we got back, I'm feeling quite tired most of the time right now.

However, we've thought of that, and it is officially wind down time here in Hong Kong. We have our day of relaxation tomorrow and today we expect to do the last of the walking tours in the guide.

After a quick breakfast we MTR it down to Hong Kong Island for the Central & Western District walk.

Stopping briefly at the Western Market – which has had a number of roles including housing and a food market but is now a small arts and crafts centre – we head into an area dedicated to wholesale of various goods. This is a very real side of Hong Kong trading, no other westerners here, just people going about their business. The produce is very alien and we haven't got a clue what much of it is and to be honest am thankful of that lack of knowledge. There seems to be a heck of a scrummage at a shark products shop, must've had some sort of rare delivery or something. Sharks fins are something that can been identified and they're expensive, I see some at £400 each, which explains why Shark Fin soup is so pricey in a restaurant I suppose! Ingredients for herbal remedies, nuts, dried mussels, dried squid, dried just about everything are all available.

Leaving this area we pass the point where “modern” Hong Kong began. Possession Street is where the British landed in 1841. Again, this isn't actually on the waterfront anymore but it's a steep climb up to a road that you can imagine was the coast road many years ago, Hollywood Road, which we follow and eventually leads to Central.

As part of this walking tour we briefly go on the Mid Levels escalator, at 800 metres the longest covered escalator in the World. Only disappointment is the stretches of the escalator are actually very short. This wasn't here last time I came and I had pictured in my head standing on it for great distances, alas not, we don't see a bit that's any longer than a standard shopping centre escalator.

Having walked around Soho and its vast array of restaurants we come to Lan Kwai Fong which is where we had drinks and watched the United game on our first night so we decide to end the walking tour here and head down into Central as Sarah has run out of reading material – she's completed 5 books so far, but won't finish another as she now has Ken Follett's World Without End to wade through, all 1237 pages of it!

Back to the hotel for a bit, we're winding it down now remember, before we get changed into something more appropriate. Appropriate means smartening up as we're going for afternoon tea at the Peninsular Hotel which is a very pleasurable experience indeed. Not cheap, but then again comparable with back home when you'd actually expect it to be much dearer, I'm amazed at how filling the dainty sandwiches, scones and chocolate actually is. We of course finish everything that's put in front of us, but those with money to burn sitting around us seem to leave elements to be taken back – some people eh? Those who are fully aware of my decaf tea obsession will be shocked that I drank cup after cup of Peninsular Afternoon tea which, by the slight bitterness in there, definitely contained caffeine. All I can say is I'm completely wired at the moment!

To the hotel again for another change, we're winding it down remember(!), before we head back down to the Kowloon waterfront for the 8pm lightshow of which I'm expecting great things.

After getting a welcome second wind we get down to the waterfront, the Avenue of Stars (think Hollywood style stars and handprints just without many handprints), for the start of the lightshow which is crazy in a who on earth thought of putting this together but brilliant to watch as various buildings show different patterns of light all the way up and down the bay, many with laser light shining from the roof, the effect really has to be seen to be appreciated.
Carrying on we promenade along the front fully taking in the vista before turning back inland on the hunt for something to eat.

Having read about it in the book we seek out Knutsford Terrace (those who know we hope to move there one day will appreciate the “it's a sign” twitter comment) which is one of those tucked away places that you'd have no idea existed if a guide didn't show you exactly where to go. There's a string of restaurants with cuisine from all round the world. As we've decided to have what we hope will be a top notch Chinese meal for our last full night tomorrow it's time to take a break from all the Asian food we've been devouring so we stop at an Australian Bar and Grill. It's amazing what a difference having courses makes, everything coming in an expected order!

Back to the hotel and completing this blog entry in the hotel's main bar which has live jazz but unfortunately no free WiFi which we had inferred from the hotel directory, but sadly mistaken. With us unlikely to leave the hotel on Friday other than to go out for dinner this will therefore be severely delayed as have a number of postings while in Hong Kong. Oh, forgetting the jazz, the singer, an Australian girl is very good ably supported by Piano and Bass. All very civilised, as is the very nice Sauvignon Blanc I'm enjoying too...

Day 21 – Hong Kong

January 14th 2009

Late start again reading the papers and generally easing into the day and we head into the Langham Place Mall attached to our hotel for some brunch.

Yesterday we picked up an excellent little booklet from the Hong Kong tourist information centre describing a number of walks around certain areas. Today we're going to do the Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok walk which takes in 8 markets in Kowloon.

Firstly it's one stop along the MTR to Prince Edward station and we're walking to the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden which is half market half park where owners take their birds “for a walk”. Not my cup of tea I'm afraid, the cages are often far too small and we move on swiftly.

Next the flower market which is, and the clue's in the title here, on Flower Market Road. The road isn't closed off for this market so it is a little like walking past shop after shop selling flowers as opposed to strolling through a market but the colours are beautiful.

After a further short walk we get to the goldfish market which, like the flower market, is shop after shop selling all manner of fish, tanks, and accessories. It's all very colourful but we don't hang around long here, plenty more to see later.

Onto the Fa Yuen Street market, and this is serious stuff now. The road is closed to traffic and there's stall after stall in the road with shop after shop behind the crowded pavement all jostling for business. While there's a bit of everything on display most prominent is ladies' fashions and footwear, Sarah has a good look through a string of shops that only sell ladies' boots – this is a trend here, pockets of shops all selling exactly the same thing – as she “needs” a pair of brown boots.

Not too far away from the Fa Yuen Street market is the Ladies market which isn't full of items for ladies, there's a bit of everything. I stop at a football kit stall, being after a cheap 97/98 season Inter Milan away kit (if you saw it you'd see why) – the woman on the stall sees my interest and is immediately on my case as to what I want... “Inter Milan away? Yes, here it is” (which itself is pretty incredible) except she only has the 98/99 season. “Why would you want the old one, I only have the new one” - is a fairly obvious question I know but she's genuinely puzzled and, in a playful way, actually starts hitting me for my own stupidity, we're all laughing by the end – which is unusual as the traders hate to see a sale walk away.

Halfway down this market we come across an English bloke who was either plain stupid or thought we'd come down in the last shower. He was basically a tout for a holiday complex elsewhere on the island. We've all seen this before, the patter was that they were conducting a tourist survey blah blah, no personal information collected other than to ascertain that we fitted the bill as a potential owner of a timeshare or whatever. At the end, as a thank you we are both given a scratch card. At this point I'm really hamming it up - “I'm feeling really lucky today, I think we're going to win big” - of course I scratch my card and I've got a t-shirt, cue tout letting me know I can pick that up at one of their booths around town but then **shock** Sarah scratches her card and she's won the star prize! The look of amazement on all our faces is suitably perfect and the tout expresses his delight that we've somehow managed to pick out only 1 of 6 star prize winning scratch cards. All we have to do is take a 20 minute taxi ride to collect our prize and we'll be happy and he'll get £100 – it's a win win. Eventually we do start laughing and hand him back the card, which he doesn't understand – of course – and I try and find out where I can get my t-shirt, which he doesn't seem to be able to tell me any more because we have to go get our star prize. We walk away laughing but I've retained my card and read as we walk away the t's and c's which would have seen us sit through a 90 minute holiday promotion video – oooh, that'll have been fun. We've now had the same scam in Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, and now Hong Kong. At least the Fuerteventura guy had the decency to know the game was up when I bet him we were going to win the star prize.

Sarah does a bit of haggling on some boots but the price quoted is much dearer than the shops we've already been to so we move on and the essential purchase is made around the corner at a bricks and mortar shop instead.

Shanghai Street is next on the way to the Jade market. The stuff in the Jade market does look nice but the guidebook warns of being sure about what you're buying. There's nothing here that seriously appeals so it's a simple browse and we're on our way to the Tin Hau Temple which is dedicated to the Goddess of Seafarers. The temple's in the middle of a suburb but apparently it used to be on the coast and all the land between it and the Victoria bay has been reclaimed. Put it this way, you wouldn't want to walk it in a hurry, it's 2 stops on the underground and then a bit more walking before you reach water.

We see the famous Temple Street Night Market being setup, but as it's just before 4pm the action hasn't started so we head straight back to the hotel for a rest before our night at the races.

The journey to Happy Valley is much smoother than the Concierge suggested, although it is rush hour so we have to queue a bit for the MTR. The suggestion of a taxi for part of the journey though turns out to be nothing more than a 10 minute walk so even with Sarah's new boots that's fine. The race course is amazing (of course) although apparently Sha Tin in Kowloon has twice the spectator capacity. It's a double first for us, horse racing under floodlights and a contained racetrack that has the appearance of a football stadium from the outside. Inside there are 15,000 spectators (according to next day's paper) and with 8 races on the card from 7:15pm to 10:45pm there's plenty of action from the word go. Of the 8 races a jockey with the nickname the Durban Demon wins 3. I bet on him twice of the 5 races I have a dabble on. He comes last in both races – cheers. One of the advantages of our tourist badge is that we get right down to the winning post which is brilliant being so close and when we do get a win its a great one as we watch our jockey bring the horse through perfectly from the back down the straight to win by a short head right in front of us. While we only get the one win, as there are no red hot favourites in these races it's enough to win most of our outlay back. The other interesting side of Happy Valley is the price of everything. Normally at racetracks you're paying a premium but here everything is cheaper than outside the stadium. Beer – from all over the world too, choice has been very limited in the bars – is about £2.80 a pint as opposed to more like £4.50 in the bars and the fast food is actually delicious and about the same price, I have a more than substantial Thai Red Chicken Curry with rice for about £3.50, compare that to the £5 spent on a cheese and ham panini at Chester races this summer...

We leave after the 7th race wondering if we'll have a winner on the 8th (the newspaper the next day reports our horse was 12th from 12 runners thanks to the Durban Disaster - thank you Sarah for the clean version of that) and head back to the hotel, first time before midnight but again absolutely shattered and ready for a good sleep.

Day 20 – Hong Kong

January 13th 2009

No beeping motorbikes or hustle and bustle this morning, no maid ignoring the do not disturb sign, our room is soundproofed and blacked out, it's just heaven. Unfortunately though we've been waking up every day at 6:30ish to get to our pickups so by 8am – which makes sense as we've moved on an hour coming here – we're awake. No breakfast included here though and I wouldn't even like to think how much it costs either so we can take our time and I have the South China Morning Post to get through too, a publication I haven't seen for almost 16 years – it's very Beijing centric now in its news content, but with good snippets from around the world it's a gentle re-introduction to what might be going on elsewhere, we really have seen no TV, other than the odd bit of background in bars, the whole time we've been here – our sum knowledge is the odd football score and an understanding that it's been incredibly cold back home.

We leave the hotel at 11am and walk to Argyle Street where a trusty McDonalds furnishes us with a Sausage and Egg McMuffin meal for breakfast. What, Sausage and Egg McMuffin at 11am I hear you cry? Yes, available all day here, none of this only available till 10:30am nonsense here – and it's plenty cheaper too.

Then it's the MTR to the last stop on Kowloon side, Tsim Sha Tsui, so we can walk – via The Peninsular Hotel, woah, that's luxury – to our first Hong Kong iconic moment, crossing Victoria Bay on the Star Ferry.

When we get to Hong Kong island first impressions are unfortunately spoiled a little as the whole area near to the Star Ferry pier appears to be one huge construction site, so the views from this area are spoiled, oh well.

We do some more walking till eventually we get to the Peak Tram terminus. The funicular railway is Hong Kong's oldest public transport and while the ride itself is only 10 minutes the steepness of the climb and ever increasingly spectacular views make it a necessity for any visit here. Arriving at the top we do have a comedy experience trying to get out of the Mall which has been built up over the tram station. It of course turns out to be incredibly easy to get out if you know where you're going but there isn't a single sign for an exit, they're trying to herd you to the top floor viewing tower that you of course have to pay to get into. Finally, and with the help of a cleaner, we reach the outside world and take in the views.

After coffee overlooking said view, we take the tram back down the Peak and pass through Hong Kong Park which has 2 weddings taking place in the nearby registry office – both couples seem incredibly young, or am I just getting old?

Getting the MTR from Admiralty (near to where our old naval base used to be, ahhh, the glory days of Empire) to Yau Ma Tei which is one stop away from Mongkok – the nearest to our hotel – we're looking for an outlet of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The Hong Kong Jockey Club is, what appears to be at least, the monopoly betting outlet for the area. Here, and we do find one on Nathan Road which their website had suggested, we buy our Tourist Badges for the racing at Happy Valley tomorrow night which we're very excited about. It's only $10 to go in with the locals
(that's less than £1) but for $100 we get more freedom of where we can go and more access to bars etc. The tourist badges are only available to those who can prove they're in the country for less than 21 days, it's a clever idea that's for sure.

We walk back to the hotel for a quick change, but first we head up to the 41st floor to the gym/spa/pool area to book our treatments for Friday which we've set aside as a day of pure relaxation. This will all be a first for me, Sarah's been goading me to have a massage for years but I've always resisted. On Friday we'll be having a salt scrub and harmony massage – sounds interesting! The facilities all look incredible, the gym looks out over Hong Kong while the pool itself is on the 42nd floor, the roof!

For the evening we're heading back up The Peak to sample what has to be one of the best views in the world, Hong Kong at night. Although it's a little hazy due to the high pollution levels the visibility is officially classed as excellent and while there's no sign of any low cloud at this time of year my previous experience of this place says to grab the opportunity as soon as you can so off we go back up the funicular. I've told Sarah she's not allowed to look until we get to the top so she's forced to stare at the floor of the tram then similarly walk to the viewing point either looking down or away till I give the word. It's certainly a sight worth waiting for, quite breathtaking. I get busy with the camera while Sarah steadily freezes as she very patiently waits for me to get it all out of my system then after savouring the panorama for a few moments we quickly head into the Mall to get out of the cold and also find a restaurant, Japanese it turns out, that overlooks the view.

Diving onto a tram just before it leaves so we have to stand, itself an interesting experience at 45 degrees, we travel via the MTR to Wan Chai, Hong Kong's own “notorious” nightlife area. However, and maybe it's simply because it's a cold Tuesday night, the place is almost deserted so with no interest in passing through the curtains to see the dancing girls we settle for a drink in a couple of normal bars before heading back on the MTR to our hotel and, exhausted again, to bed.

Day 19 – Hanoi to Hong Kong

January 12th 2009

Our final few hours in Vietnam pass uneventfully, the driver is early – again – and apart from an odd wait lasting a few minutes while they “check the room”, I did contemplate putting the safety deposit box in my rucksack but fortunately decided against it or else I would've been rumbled, we cut through the morning rush hour traffic to the airport.

Hanoi International terminal is pretty standard although there seems to be a lot of building work going on in the waiting area which does make it all a bit scruffy. Efficient checkin, back to no queues, and we pass through immigration and security with minimal fuss, really does go to show you not to believe half of what you read on the internet (this blog of course is simply copied from a guidebook), I was expecting some sort of drama at some point passing through these borders but nothing of the sort. Yes, the immigration and security officers are grim faced, but that's pretty standard worldwide and I don't for a minute believe these people are cutting corners anywhere either, details are taken meticulously and security appears to be just as tight.

After some very nice beef and pasta on the plane, oh and another last Vietnamese beer, we touch down at Hong Kong's new (to me) airport 25 minutes early. The airport is vast, quite a shock compared to where we've been travelling previously and the first indication that we're in a totally different kind of crazy – the “temperature control station” which from the front is a group of about 10 completely bored looking girls staring at screens. It's only when you get to the other side and look back that you see they're watching thermal images of everyone walking through – if you've got a fever they'll spot it and you're off to quarantine. I suppose it's sort of reassuring but still crazy.

Queuing for immigration is a bit of a chore, the queues are of US proportions and there are very few staff working the desks, but we're British so queuing is what we do best. When we finally pass through to get our transfer things do start to get a bit weird. Previously all transfers have been by private car so you just get used to it. Here we're going to be on a coach it seems, but only after we've been passed around a bit between staff, told to stand with fellow travellers (we had all been happily sitting) and wait for about 10 minutes like naughty schoolchildren and then walk through the airport for what seems like miles – it's perhaps 150 yards – till we're diverted off to an array of coaches. It's not much different to a package holiday transfer I suppose, just seems a bit odd the way we're being handled.

The transfer itself is only notable in that our first drop off is at Disneyland Hong Kong – which from the car park appears to be almost empty, good time to go I suppose! We continue along what is in effect a bridge that runs for miles all the way from the airport to Kowloon and Sarah gets her first glimpse of Hong Kong itself, it's a bit hazy but still an impressive sight even at distance. I can tell that a number of newer, and even more massive, buildings have been built since I was last here, it's all incredible and you immediately lose all sense of perspective.

Our hotel, The Langham Place, is just incredible from the word go. Kowloon side, which is relatively low rise in comparison to Hong Kong, our hotel is 42 storeys high, has a taller office block right next to it and is simply nowhere near the size of buildings further away. This is the sort of place where blocks of flats – and there are hundreds of them – are getting on for Beetham Tower size. Would be quite easy to write a complete blog entry on this hotel, but suffice to say if I could afford to see out our 180 day visa here while staying here, I don't think we'd be coming home till the summer! The only downer is the lack of free wifi here. Like most western hotels they choose to make you pay which I find somewhat ridiculous when they should be getting themselves a reputation as somewhere that facilitates good business not taxes it. Updates will therefore be very difficult to post.

Having watched our hotel orientation video and come to terms with being able to look out of the window without screaming – we're on the 20th floor – we head out to hit Hong Kong for the first time.

A combination of walking and the MTR (Mass Transit Railway, Hong Kong's underground) we end up at Central to find somewhere to eat. Selecting a place which is basically for locals I begin to have my doubts as we're shown up a narrow staircase into a tiny back room with about 5 tables and a scattering of stools to sit on, but the food is great. It comes in the when it's ready style that is so Asian, this time our soup is the last thing on the table, and that does make you rush a bit to ensure it doesn't all go cold, but that said my braised pork rib in spicy red rice sauce is without doubt the tastiest Chinese main course I've ever eaten.

We then hit a couple of bars in Soho just to finish off the evening. After 1 drink in the first bar the plan is to move on for 1 more. This falls apart however when we take our seats at Bulldogs just as the complete 90 minutes re-run of Manchester United's 3-0 battering of Chelsea comes on the screen. Oh well, fortunately they take credit cards as the booze is very expensive here, and we're back to pints too which my body certainly has forgotten existed.

We do finally get back to the hotel shortly after midnight, shattered, it's been a long but excellent day.

Day 18 – Ha Long Bay to Hanoi

January 11th 2009

Firstly I'm tapping away at the computer on the open deck of our junk cruising through Ha Long Bay. The sun's out, wind has dropped and the French are incredibly curious as to what I'm up to – it doesn't get much better than this, well other than WiFi of course, but we'll let the Vietnamese off for not providing that out here I suppose.

Breakfast is indeed at 7:30am, simple but fills a hole. It's explained that the reason it's so early today is because our trip also includes lunch, which will be served at 11am – so we need a big enough gap to get hungry again!

On deck and some of the passengers suddenly shoot off on the small boat. We're puzzled but not alone on the boat so wonder what's going on. A bit miffed, Sarah establishes from our guide that they're going off to see something that's not really worth looking at while we cruise to the next stop. Once there they return and we all go off to visit a one entrance in/one exit out lagoon which is also the home to some small monkeys which thankfully we don't get too close to!

On deck again now, just stopped to take my millionth photo of the rocks – you just never know which one will capture it properly – and catch up on some blogging. Going to sit back and relax and enjoy the quietness of the cruising before we head back to Hanoi for our last night in Vietnam.

Following our early lunch we depart the junk almost exactly 24 hours after we got on, there's no doubt another set of overnight trippers waiting to come straight on as all the rooms have been cleaned while we were on deck, keep 'em coming through...

We meet up with our driver and are soon on our way back to Hanoi, the air con has stopped working, but with the windows down it's fortunately not too hot today. Rather than falling straight to sleep, sleep was at a premium last night as the boat was pretty noisy, we're actually quite awake and engage Dwan in some conversation. I establish that some billboards I saw on the way from the airport were indeed for “Vietnam Idol”, of which they've had 3 series so far – this causes great amusement of course and I explain the concept of Strictly Come Dancing, thus preparing him for what is inevitably coming their way. Also I ask the question over western style wedding dresses – as we pass yet more wedding parties going on by the side of the road. He explains that previously the bride would wear a long red dress, which they still do for the engagement ceremony as this is the most important part; red is a lucky colour here. The western style dress is now worn for the wedding party, it's always hired as “you only wear it once so why would you want to buy one?”

As we do start to drop off we stop at another of the roadside disabled worker warehouses. This one seems to specialise more in sculpture but also does the range of silk prints. Is amusing as the chatty sales person disappears swiftly when we explain we already have 2 and won't be buying anymore!

Back at our hotel for the last night in Vietnam, bigger room this time, not sure what we did to deserve that. It looks like there's a connecting door to another room, not unusual in itself except the noise from the street is very loud, it's as if the door is actually to the outside itself, which is a little more strange.

We select a very nice sounding restaurant that both our guidebooks agree on. It's a slight risk as it's in the opposite direction to the city centre, but the writeup is excellent so off we go. Quick look outside the hotel reveals that our door is actually the door to a disused balcony, now filled with an air conditioning unit – so that at least explains that one.

The Seasons of Hanoi restaurant certainly doesn't let us down, is excellent. For want of a better descriptive term, it's “posh”, excellent menu, beautiful décor, and the food of course is absolutely delicious, my sauted chicken with peanuts is to die for. This is a truly fitting way to end our Vietnam culinary experience.

Just time for a last Ha Noi beer in the hotel bar – solely to get rid of some Vietnamese Dong of course – before we settle back into our room to try and catch up on some sleep. The alarm's set for 6:45am again as we've yet another 8am pickup to take us to the airport and... Hong Kong!

Day 17 – Hanoi to Ha Long Bay

January 10th 2009

Alarm goes off at 6:45am as today we have an 8am pickup to take us to the legendary natural wonder that is Ha Long Bay, the bay of the descending dragon – well you can't ask for much more than that!

Breakfast and checkout completed we meet our new guide, Dwan, and our driver Comg. A younger crew than our Mekong team and a smaller car, but no lacking in enthusiasm as we make our way through the Hanoi rush hour.

The best news of the day though is the weather which is beautifully sunny. We'd been scared by the English we met in Hoi An who didn't get out to Ha Long Bay due to the poor weather ensuring that the rock formations would be completely hidden by fog, Dwan assures us that sunny in Hanoi means it should be fine in Ha Long Bay.

As is only natural I suppose, the first 30 minutes of the trip (it'll apparently take at least 3 hours to do the 100 miles to Ha Long Bay) is an almost constant barrage from Dwan with facts and questions about our trip so far. He is added to a long list of people on this trip who are incredibly excited that we're from Manchester and even more so that we actually live close to Old Trafford. News of Ronaldo's car crash is quickly relayed to us, although it's more to do with the fact that he had a brand new car the next day than the crash itself which causes a certain amount of disbelief. Dwan, however, has a bit of a fame story of his own being recently the guide for Jeremy Clarkson and family so, suitably impressed with each other we head off along National Route 1, the same road we took out to the Mekong Delta approximately 1,000 miles away. Up here it's much more like a classic dual carriageway, there are no shops alongside the road and hardly any other vehicles at all actually, so the pace is good – a steady 80kph of course.

First stop is ABC, a big warehouse of a building which doubles as a roadside service cafe and purveyor of arts and crafts. If we'd like to buy something that would be fine – thanks Dwan. This time though we take much more of an interest as this is a setup using disabled labour – many of whom are working in the warehouse itself. We're assured of a Manchester United discount from the salesman who is now following us at a discreet distance of about 4 feet all round the displays. The merchandise is excellent and we buy 2 silk embroideries which will be on display soon after we get home – especially as we get this morning's special price which is even less than the Manchester United discount we've already been promised!

Back on the road and after a few snoozes – it's warm in the back of the car, honest – we reach Ha Long 30 minutes ahead of schedule, it's taken us just under 3 hours.

After waiting for some other passengers – yes, we're actually going to have to share the boat, disgraceful – we take a small boat out to our Junk which will be our home for the next 24 hours or so. There's 14 people on this boat in cabins of 2, that doesn't include the crew, who all seem incredibly young, or the gaggle of guides who have accompanied the 6 or so parties who are making up this trip, most are French, just one couple who I think are Dutch. Dwan tells us that after dinner tonight he and the other guides will be taken off the boat to sleep on a different boat nearby. The crew, it turns out, sleep wherever they can put a sleeping bag down for the night.

I'm avoiding shellfish completely at the moment as it was most probably the reason for my illness when we hit Cambodia so despite my love of prawns and crab, it's simply not worth the risk. Fortunately Dwan has phoned this info through to the boat as lunch consists of about 7 very small courses, half of which are prawns or crab! There is certainly some curiosity when I'm brought out different stuff to everyone else, but at least they've catered for me which is great.

We're cruising into Ha Long Bay now which is straight out of the Man With The Golden Gun. There's a slight haze in the distance but that just adds to the mystical quality of the rocky outcrops further in the distance. There's no regularity to the rocks, everywhere you look is different and the outlook is constantly changing as we cruise along slowly and without so much as a ripple to disturb the gentle peace of it all.

Although there's not many people out here – plenty of tourist junks – there are some small communities actually living on the water. Some permanently, some move around. We just can't imagine living this way but Dwan points out that these people made the choice to live like this and, incredibly, believes that any kids they have up to the age of 9 or 10 won't have stepped foot once onto dry land.

After a while we stop and get into the small boat to be taken to shore, this is to visit some caves which have been naturally worn out of the rocks. While nothing like this is standard, for descriptive purposes it's the usual stalagmites, stalactites and weird and wonderful lookalike rock formations which Dwan takes pleasure in pointing out to us, all good stuff.

Back on the boat and we visit another island, this has a look out point at the top which we're told is 450 steps up. The island was allegedly named by Ho Chi Minh himself after the first Russian into space, but unless the Vietnamese know something we don't, or Yuri has had a name change to something close to Tito, then it isn't. We brave the steps in the hope of seeing the sun set over the rocks, it's hard work as the steps are pretty steep but I'm not having it that it's 450, Sarah speculates it's maybe 450 up and down which sounds more plausible.

The view from the top is stunning, on one side the lowering sun reflecting beautifully onto the islands, while on the other looking into the sun itself through the haze, its light shining off the water, is breathtaking. I ramp up the shutter speed and take some photos which I hope will capture it all. Unfortunately we can't wait for the sun to actually set, while it's going down rapidly, the rest of our party who came up the steps are long gone and we worry about holding everyone up. The sun does eventually set as we head back to the junk, it's beautiful but hasn't turned the sky completely orange so I don't feel we missed out by coming down too soon.

When the sun does go down it get much colder and we spend some time on deck before heading into our cabin for some reading ahead of dinner.

Dinner is 9 courses – all tiny – with more prawns and crab, but the chef's got me sorted out with alternatives so all is well.

We've moored for the night in a sheltered natural harbour so when we head back onto deck after dinner it's all incredibly still and with no wind has gone warm enough to sit out for a while. The moon is full and incredibly bright which provides us with a clear view of the imposing rocks around us. I'm just a little disappointed (never satisfied I know) that with a clear sky and no man made light pollution we're denied a good view of the stars by the sheer brightness of the moon.

Back inside and after enjoying some wine while playing the extended holiday game, further details on request, we retire to our cabin. Breakfast is at 7:30am tomorrow and while I'm enjoying making the most of the day, it would be nice to get a decent night's sleep soon!

Day 16 – Hanoi

January 9th 2009

Breakfast at this hotel is all over by 9am, ouch, so there's no lie in this morning – not that there'd be much chance for that as we're positioned on the 1st floor overlooking a reasonably major junction, and of course there's no such thing as double glazing round here...

Surprisingly fresh this morning, well not me, I stuck to bottles of beer, but Sarah's black russians don't seem to have had any adverse effects either.

We did have a bit of a disaster last night which I omitted from my blog. While withdrawing a million dong (sounds impressive, it's about 40 quid) from a cash machine, the majority of which are in small cubicles that you have a door to, bit like a phone box, I got distracted looking at the map with Sarah and because I didn't retrieve my card it swallowed it. While I was furious with myself straightaway this sort of thing must happen all the time as Citibank, who's machine it was, had a full set of instructions up for how to reclaim your card. As I lost it on a Thursday night though I had to retrieve it Friday or that would've been it, closed over the weekend and our pickup on Monday is before the bank opens. So, after breakfast I call the bank and speak to a lady who tells me I can pick up my card at 5pm, phew, but that the bank closes at 4pm. What? “The bank closes at 4pm, come round at 5pm and bang on the door.” Oh, that's alright then.

We set off for today's sightseeing hopeful that the system will work.

Heading in the opposite direction to yesterday, towards Ho Tay, the West Lake, we are relieved to encounter fully functioning pavements, and so as not to go on about it, this is the same for the rest of the day.

Although the guidebooks don't mention much about it, it seems we're really close to a full on military base, right in the heart of the city – well I suppose they've repelled enough attacks to be better safe than sorry. We pay a pound each to go to the top of the old North Gate as our guidebook does promise views of the military grounds. Unfortunately it's not £2 well spent as you can't see anything, but there's a pretty temple up there so not all is lost.

Carrying on around the outside of the base we start to see the real Communist magnificence in terms of monuments, parade grounds etc. Given that Vietnam is a long way behind the old Soviet Union and China in the Communist hierarchy it does make you wonder at what Moscow and Beijing must be like, because the area around the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is very impressive. Ho Chi Minh's in there apparently, although it's shut today. Top tip, don't visit Hanoi's government run buildings on a Friday, they're all closed! He didn't want to be in there apparently, his wish was to be cremated, but in a Lenin style he lies permanently in state here – well apart from the 3 months he spends in Moscow each year for routine maintenance. Yes, horrific, I know.

We then encounter the first real restrictions we've had in Vietnam, which I was reminded before we came here was a Communist country but apart from the odd old fashioned propaganda poster you'd never know. Once we leave the main parade square all the truly magnificent buildings – the Presidential palace, the Russian Embassy, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex – are all covered in “no cameras” signs, with uniformed security hovering in wait should you whip the camera out of its case.

Carrying on our way we get to the lake which is much bigger than the one in the centre of Hanoi. Wouldn't exactly call it picturesque but it would be nice to have such an expanse of water close by back home. As we sit to rest and look at the maps we attract plenty of attention from women selling fruit, which when we finally get the message across that we don't want to buy the next step is to ask us to take a photo of them, no, ok well take a photo of us wearing their old fashioned carrying mechanism – looks like a big set of old fashioned scales they carry over their shoulders, should know what it's called but then again, perhaps not. Either way we're not interested but it's a while before they go. Is strange because we haven't had any of this before, perhaps times are harder in Hanoi than the rest of Vietnam.

More wandering, through the botanical gardens, where we either see 2 weddings or 2 wedding fashion shoots, can't be sure as it's just bride and groom and photographers. A bit of a loop around the back of the Ho Chi Minh museum, closed of course, and we get to the Temple of Literature, a temple dedicated to Confucius which was also the site of the country's first University. Much of it has been rebuilt recently, modern but still in the old style, and it's another welcome respite from the traffic outside.

Lunch is a sandwich in the Smile Cafe, which I wouldn't normally mention but by total accident the Smile Cafe is one of a chain of educational eateries where disadvantaged kids are given training in the catering industry. We've read about the other outlets in one of the guidebooks, they do good work and we certainly feel good about eating there.

On to Lenin Park to see the statue of.... Lenin. Flag Tower, Military Museum (closed) and the rather disappointing Ambassador's Pagoda which wasn't the easiest thing to find and didn't live up to Sarah's “it'd better be worth it” when we got there.

Now I'm pretty certain we finally got scammed today, as my mother in law predicted we would at some point. At this stage of our walk we're stopped for the 3rd time today by a “student” - always a girl, and always with an equally young lad on a motorbike waiting to whisk them away. The first time was not far out of our hotel this morning at which point we were scammed or, with about a 1% probability, did something worthy. Obviously we're armed with experience for the 2nd and 3rd time this happens and after we scam some directions out of them, as of course part of their scam is their willingness to be helpful, we hit them with the “you're collecting for the Red Cross are you? Well we paid this morning” line and they go off on their way. It's well thought through though. Lots of credentials and a book that you're invited to write your name, country, and donation. Ever the cynic, and skinflint, I see what the others have donated and put in less, about £2, so not the end of the world. Some have donated a lot more though, £20 and above, must be laughing all the way to the bank these kids.

We get to the Citibank about 3:50pm, not being convinced about this coming back after the closing time (see cynic reference above), but are told “obviously” to come back at 5pm. OK, see you in 66 minutes time I suppose.

Time to kill, we hit a small shopping mall which is crammed with Western brands, it's just like walking into a 4 storey mini Arndale centre, Ronaldo's up there in the Nike Store, it's all very reassuring. Have the strongest decaf latte ever and after browsing some of the stores we head back the bank which is, as promised, closed – and shuttered. My faith in the system is certainly tested as we're about 5 minutes early so just have to stand and wait. Magically at 5pm on the dot the shutters come up and we're buzzed in, quick flash of the passport and my lovely cash card is back in my possession, as memorable moments go, not one I thought I'd be having but the relief is massive. Celebrate with a bit of haggling at the market and withdrawing another cool million.

The evening's setting in now and roads around the market are very busy but we find a parallel route to our inward journey of yesterday where at least most of the pavements are passable. Back to the hotel for a rest and packing, we're off on our Ha Long Bay excursion tomorrow – 8am pickup - before finding something to eat.

Decide to stick with the hotel fayre as after all the walking we've done today we're both really tired. So it's a quick bite then back to the room for more reading and the choccy bar we sneaked in a purchase of this afternoon :-)

Day 15 – Hoi An to Hanoi

January 8th 2009

Technically Hoi An to Ha Noi of course, but that's going to be a pain to remember so will carry on with Hanoi!

Pleasant start to the day in Hoi An, up before the alarm for a change and get in a nice early breakfast giving us plenty of time to prepare for our pickup.

We go and say goodbye to the sea, although realising that we'll see the same sea in both Ha Long Bay and Hong Kong does make it slightly less sentimental!

We have a whole minibus to ourselves on the way back to Da Nang and I have to retract something said a couple of days ago. Having been driven to the centre of town for each airport we've landed at – because that's obviously where we've been staying – in going from Da Nang to Hoi An we've simply skirted round the periphery of Vietnam's 3rd largest city and I don't know whether it was just the weather or the angle with which we left but on the way back in with clearer skies we can see in the distance a whole bunch of what look like tall office blocks congregated in what must be a fairly substantial city centre. Looks like there's a lot going on here afterall, although they'll need to upgrade the airport if they're going to get serious traffic through, it's tiny...

Out flight is on time and, apart from some hassle over the weight of Sarah's carry on bag from an overzealous official, passes without incident.

Stepping off the plane it is, no other way to describe it, cold. I've been hearing all about the deep freeze that's going on back home so 15 degrees must sound like a heatwave, but not when you've come from 32 degrees with a brief stop off at 25 degrees it doesn't! It's going to be coats on and long sleeves for the duration of the holiday I think, the locals are wrapped up as if it's 20 below, all a bit of a shock to the system.

Hanoi is back to Vietnamese crazy, our driver is waiting for us but there's quite a scrum for stopping space so it's a while before he can go and pickup the car to collect us. Not mentioned the drivers much, basically because they've all just gone about their business in a very professional manner on roads which would terrify most people, not the speeds but the lack of rules and volume of motorbikes cutting in everywhere. This guy however is a bit different. Extremely pleasant and helpful with the bags, then we get in his car and as Sarah refers to it, it's the party bus. Techno music pumping out of the speakers – with some pretty choice lyrics in there at times - and then from the moment we set off to reaching the hotel, a journey of about 40 minutes, our driver is either has his phone glued to his ear deep in conversation or is looking at his phone – as opposed to the road. Nothing hairy actually happens, but we do seem to be using all of the 2 lanes rather than just the 1, oh well, we arrive in 1 piece and he gets the lowest tip possible.

Our hotel again is fine, a business hotel really. Location not quite as great as in HCMC and it takes quite a while to find ourselves on the map.


We decide to hit the streets straightaway as we're not actually in Hanoi for that long. The walk into the more central area – like most cities there isn't an actual central point – isn't far but takes quite a while as we have to walk the whole way along the road with motorbikes whistling past our ears, it's not the most pleasant stroll ever. The roads are incredibly narrow here compared to HCMC, so the pavements are given over exclusively to market stalls and parking of motorbikes, of which there are thousands, so the humble pedestrian has no choice but to run the gauntlet on the road itself.

Reaching Ho Hoan Kiem, a lake in the centre of Hanoi, is a relief as there's a chance to put a little distance between us and the traffic. We head into a sidestreet to a small bar for a drink and to collect our thoughts. We head back to the lake for a restaurant overlooking the water, and as it's getting dark – very rapidly this close to the equator – this becomes a very pleasant spot with the lights coming on all around. More Vietnamese food, including the Hanoi speciality Ca Cha – a bit like Thai fishcakes – and I have a pork dish which has caramel in the description but isn't at all sweet and is delicious, and we're ready to hit the town.

Our guidebook has a good range of bars to frequent and we're able to plot a decent looking route back to the hotel that'll take in a few of them. Keeping warm is a bit of a challenge in the first few bars which are open to the street, Sarah tackles this admirably by moving on to black russians! Quite a few places appear to have changed names since the book was written and while we visit “Mao's Red Lounge” - formerly Bar Labyrinth – we give “Bar Loo” a miss, not just for its toilet reference but the volume of the music pumping out when the doors open.

On the way back to the hotel we pass by the market which is only just closing up – is apparently open from 6am to 10pm! As my map reading skills seem to have passed the test, we get back to the hotel in time for a nightcap before calling it a night.

Day 14 – Hoi An

January 7th 2009
Ahhhhhhhh...

The cloud is much patchier today so there's some good spells of sunshine. We read our books relaxing by the pool which is sparsely populated except for obligatory group of screaming kids – Aussies of course – but to be fair they're not that bad and there is only a few of them.

The volume of Aussies here, and in the town itself, I think goes some way to answering my question of yesterday as to who will come here when all the fancy hotels have been built, the largest population will I suspect be Australian.

Having read for a while we head down to the beach and I have a good splash around in the waves. The sea is lovely and warm but I don't venture out too far as the currents are incredibly strong. Even just jumping the waves though I can see the attraction of surfing, being within the power of the sea is fantastic. Can't stay in too long though as it's quite tiring keeping in line with Sarah on the beach.

Back to the pool for a bit and more reading, spot of lunch. The clouds have started to form again now and are pretty dark. A few spots of rain just as we're finishing our lunch and we decide it's time to head back to the room anyway. Good job as it turns out as within 5 minutes we have a deluge. Seems like this is the time of day for rain, mid afternoon, as it coincides with our arrival yesterday when it had obviously just rained. Doesn't last long and keeps everything lush that's for sure.

More reading then we get changed and take the hotel's private car into Hoi An for another walk round, a bit of shopping, and something to eat.

Stopping in a guidebook recommended restaurant we feel we sample real Vietnamese food for perhaps the first time. Sarah has a set menu while I order separately just to avoid the shellfish and within just a few minutes our table is full of small plates and bowls. Wanton soup, White Roses, Fried Wanton and the Hoi An speciality Cao Lao – a bowl of noodles and pork with a small amount of broth in the bottom (as opposed to the noodle/meat “soups” that you get everywhere else). Doesn't seem to taste of much but after a while our mouths are subtly tingling, it's quite strange but certainly not unpleasant. Ridiculous prices again, both our meals with a beer and large bottle of water comes to £7.

We get the last seats on the shuttle bus sitting next to some English people who've been in Vietnam for a while, traveling in the opposite direction to us. We're the first English people they've met which sums it up round here.

Back to the room to pack for tomorrow and we complete the evening watching a film on the computer.

Power relaxing indeed...

Day 13 – Ho Chi Minh City to Hoi An

January 6th 2009

As we're picked up to go to the airport, early, – again – there's more than a twinge of sadness leaving both our hotel and this city which, while being nothing like Manchester of course, is sort of like our home city, there's things to see but not that many, it's all about being there and sampling what's going on around you. I've liked it here, a lot.

Traffic is slow around this time, which is not surprising, so it takes around 45 minutes to get to the airport and of course for the first time on this trip we're taken to the domestic rather than the international terminal. The domestic terminal at HCMC is fine, I was worried that it wouldn't be airconditioned if it caters for “locals” but of course there's a whole mix of people travelling and the Vietnamese are probably in the minority even traveling internally.

Our first queue of the trip too, which is almost a relief, things were too easy. It all goes down very quickly though and having been at the airport around 20 minutes perhaps we're sitting near our gate with an hour or so to kill before we're due to depart.

When we're finally called to board it becomes clear that we're going to be leaving late and that sort of becomes apparent when the Vietnamese Airlines staff take us to a China Airways Airbus. The flight is packed and I'm guessing the plane had to be upgraded at some point which was then delayed incoming. We're sat together having checked in nice and early though so that's all that matters.

The flight passes without incident, well, apart from some fairly heavy turbulence on approach to Da Nang which was a little stomach churning. If HCMC airport had a flavour of the old US air strips about it then I can see why just about every Vietnam War reference on film and TV has some mention of “flying missions out of Da Nang” - this is real back to basics stuff, I suppose you'd politely call it “tired” but it's plain shabby.

After a fairly long wait for baggage our driver is waiting for us, a man of very few words it turns out, but that's fine.

It turns out to be about 40 minutes from Da Nang to Hoi An, the speed limit here is only 80km/h on the fastest roads and everyone seems to take them very seriously so we seem to just trundle along. As we drive through Da Nang to the main coastal road there's nothing particularly inspiring about the place, like its airport, until we reach the outskirts and there appears to be some major development work going on with a very futuristic looking building already in place. This is Vietnam's 3rd city but I think the drop off from the first 2 is pretty dramatic. With all this building work I can't help thinking who's going to be buying up all these apartments and office space. The coastal road similarly appears to be one long building site, or at least with hoardings up to proclaim the next “resort and apartcondo's” - big names too, Crowne Plaza, Raffles, they seem to be lining up to build here – maybe I'm just being miserable because it's really cloudy and has obviously just rained, but “why” is the only thing going through my head – oh and “why” followed by “have we bothered to come here for 2 nights”...

The Palm Garden Resort is certainly very nice, and expectations are high as the posters in the airport advertising this place were proudly showing photos of the Miss Universe contestants for the pageant which appears to have been held here in 2008. Claims 5* status which I'm not convinced of, 4* definitely. Our room is spacious and while we don't have a sea view we're not far off. Grab something to eat in one of the restaurants overlooking the South China Sea which is looking pretty rough but all adds to the atmosphere.

I plan on getting a suit made, Hoi An is famous for its 200 tailors and previous visitors have recommended taking advantage. We're 5km outside Hoi An itself but the hotel provides a shuttle service which we take advantage of at 4pm.

Initial impressions of Hoi An are also not great. It's a small town and doesn't look particularly appealing. I can see on the map Le Loi (again!) which is where the tailor I have been recommended has his shop so we head off on a loop to get there.

When we get to Le Loi, which would be a 1 way street in the UK it's so narrow, certainly the quality of buildings increases dramatically and it's all looking quite pretty but I'm concentrating on finding this tailor. We pass a school that's just kicking out – cue complete madness in the tiny street with parents and kids shooting off on motorbikes in all directions.

Finding the tailors we're lead out the back – which would concern me were it not for the recommendation – to an area with catalogues, cloth samples, and tables and chairs to sit, look, discuss. The catalogues are funny, UK high street catalogues, you pick what you want and they'll tailor make it for you. After a discussion we settle on a style and cloth so how much? Now, I'd been lead to believe this would be around the £50 mark, someone else had said even less. So I was a little shocked when I was told it would be $280... With a cheaper fabric that could be brought down to $200 – and yes yes I know that a tailor made suit in the UK would be much much more – but with 2 fittings required in the next 24 hours, not being 100% sure on the style and hopeful of losing more weight when we get back home, I decide that it's just not worth it.

So with a mixture of disappointment but also a strange relief we head off to explore these nicer streets of Hoi An and almost immediately all thoughts of the disappointment of our arrival are banished. Hoi An is a lovely place, the narrow streets give is great charm and there's a mixture of shops, restaurants, bars which give it a very interesting feel. The guidebook says it's a UNESCO World Heritage place, but it also say we'd have to pay £3 to get into the town which we didn't, so
I'm not 100% sure on that one.

Having taken in the sights, and there's not that many it has to be said, this is a small town, we park ourselves at Treat's - “The original and best backpackers bar in Hoi An since 1997”. One of our guidebooks is South East Asia on a shoestring and this place is highly recommended. One look at the drinks menu and you can see why. Happy Hour is 4pm to 9pm and bottles of beer are basically 40p, it's crackers. We spend over an hour sitting in the open window watching the world go by, a few beers each, Sarah also has a Pina Colada, our bill... £3.

By now it's dark, we head to another bar for a glass of wine and there's a full blown cookery course going on. That would've been nice to do but as we're only really here for 1 full day it's not going to be possible.

Shuttle bus back to the hotel at 8:30pm and there appears to be some sort of open air play going on at the bus station. It's drawn quite a crowd, there's lights and microphones so it's not just appeared from nowhere but given its location it all seems a bit odd. Our shuttle bus driver struggles to describe what it's about, he uses the word Opera but with no singing, yet, we decide not to pursue it any further.

Have a late dinner in one of the other restaurants in the hotel. It's a highly international menu as you'd probably expect but we both have the Vietnamese Chicken/Beef satays for starters which are fantastic.
We round off the evening in the hotel bar which is almost empty but they have a band playing. Come to think of it we've seen hardly anyone while we've been at this hotel, have no idea how many other guests are staying here, the weather hasn't helped perhaps but it's all a bit strange.

The band finish, Sarah and I play a couple of frames of pool – I'm far too much of a gentleman to say who won of course – and we finish for the night. Tomorrow is “power relaxing” - a day we've had lined up to do absolutely nothing...

Day 12 – Ho Chi Minh City

January 5th 2009

Our last full day in HCMC, up at 9am for breakfast then back to the room to check our plans and pack the bag for our wander round.

Out the door on to Nguyen Hue and the first thing that hits us is that it's a hot one today, going to be a real test of the acclimatisation we've thought has been going well. Not only is it sunny, which makes a world of difference, but it seems to be quite humid compared to what we've got used. So the pace of today will be necessarily slow.

All the museums and public attraction buildings have lengthy closing times for lunch – a throw back to the French now doubt! - so timings are also going to be difficult to manage as it's unlikely given the heat we'll actually fancy any lunch today to fill that gap.

Turning down Le Loi (Lay Loy – Vietnamese not French which was my first thought), one of the main boulevards, we take our time walking down to the main market in HCMC, Ben Thanh. This is a part locals part tourist market, which is good as we don't feel isolated from the everyday goings on, and is within a market building as opposed to being outside. All the guidebooks warn to be aware of pickpockets here, happy to report nothing missing, I can see why, the walkways between stalls are incredibly narrow with each tiny stall seemingly having at least 3 late teenage girls working on it. They're quite tactile in trying to get you to stop, so in all those hands it wouldn't be too surprising for the odd wallet to go missing. Clothes are the main selling point, and while I've no doubt whatsoever they're all fake, seeing Ralph Lauren shirts for £3 brings a smile. Walking past the stalls eventually brings some desperate “what are you looking for” from the stallholders, suspect anything you said they'd rush off elsewhere and get it. I eventually buy an iconic Vietnamese flag t-shirt and have fun with the bartering, not done it for years but the old techniques come flooding back. You actually have to remember not to be too harsh, the sums aren't actually much to us, so I'm happy that my T-shirt comes down from 55,000 to 40,000 – less than £2 in the end...

While there's the odd fan in the market it's pretty stifling so we escape outside and after a hundred yards dive into a bar/coffee house for air con and some drinks, I become weirdly enthralled by a TV programme on the life of the, not particularly good, Argentinian tennis player Juan Ignacio Chela – well, I haven't actually watched TV this holiday so it's just novelty value I suppose!

Next stop is the Reunification Palace, which we know will be closed at this time but are hopeful we can get into the grounds for a walk round. This is the place the Communists headed straight for when they entered Saigon and scene of the iconic photo of the tank passing through iron gates. While we don't get in we can clearly see the building from the fence and it's a strangely modern affair considering it used to be the old palace of the president. Then you realise that it was bombed twice by disgruntled South Vietnamese air force officers so it's actually a 1970s building. The tanks and a jet fighter in the grounds all add to the effect.

Bit more walking and we're into the afternoon, the heat is really getting to us now so we find another cafe, Arnolds, for another 7Up and air conditioning while we wait for the War Remnants museum to open.

The War Remnants museum is one of those places where you don't really want to go but you sort of have to. Put together almost instantaneously by the Communists when they entered Saigon, it's been open for visitors since September 1975 (the same year they took over the south). At least they've changed the name, used to be called something like The Museum of War Crimes against Vietnam, but I don't suppose that really drew in the French and American tourists, and while the French get away with it a bit, it's the Americans who obviously bear the brunt of the propaganda. I think propaganda is just about the right word here, it's very obvious that the wording and “quotes” used are all trying to portray a strong message of pure US atrocities in the area and without being intimate with the history of the conflict there's a large number of photos which could easily be construed in a number of ways. I have to shy away from one section of the exhibition, seeing the pictures of the child victims of the chemical warfare is too much for me. Ultimately it's the plainly obvious message that war is terrible and the stats behind it are just incomprehensible. Sarah observes in a children's art competition showing pictures of peace etc that there is a clearly indoctrinated message being put across – this isn't free thinking art of children we're looking at, so perhaps there is an undertone to Vietnam in general that has simply passed me by.

We take a stroll back to the hotel via the City Hall to shower and have a rest before another, more gentile, evening in HCMC. The heat has taken its toll so we certainly need the break.

A guidebook recommendation is to go for cocktails at the 10th floor bar of the 5* Caravelle Hotel, as it's just round the corner would be rude not too so we duly oblige. Get a good balcony seat with good views around. Strangely our own 3* hotel – which we can see clearly from our perch – has a much better view from its 11th floor restaurant but sitting outside on the balcony is very pleasant indeed.

A couple of cocktails later, a whopping bill – the guidebook said Happy Hour, it was wrong – and we head to Lemongrass, the restaurant we were unable to get into last night. This time we're successful and have a very good set meal, the cheapest one it turns out at only $12 a head, but genuinely the one we wanted.

Back to the hotel for the last time and packing up again, our pickup is at 9am tomorrow morning to take us back to the airport for our flight to Da Nang and hopefully some R&R in Hoi An.

Day 11 – Can Tho to Ho Chi Minh City

January 4th 2009

Early start, for a holiday anyway, 7am for breakfast. Have to hang around for a bit as there's nowhere to sit, who'd have thought everyone wanted to eat at this time. Not quite the range we've been getting used to for breakfast but, relatively speaking, we are out in the backend of beyond so no complaints.

The reason for the early start is we have a boat trip to the floating markets, the biggest on the Mekong Delta, to make and the later in the day it gets the less people there are about, more people = better photo opportunities!

Nduc meets us in the lobby and we walk down to one of the small piers just a couple of minutes from the hotel. Not many other people about at this particular moment and true to form a boat pulls up, much bigger than yesterday's, and soon we're on our way. Just us, our guide, the driver and his assistant! Cruising in the larger boat is even better than yesterday which did get a bit choppy on the waves at times. Passing under a strangely “under construction” bridge – strange in the places it hasn't been completed yet, i.e. they've left what looks about 4 feet right in the middle – it takes us about 30 minutes to reach the floating markets.

Now we'd both pictured something off “Wish You Were Here” I think, floating up and down somewhere narrow haggling with the locals over souvenirs etc but unsurprisingly we are completely and utterly wrong. This is a full on commercial market, it just happens to take place on the river. Large boats are the wholesalers, smaller boats come and go as middlemen take the goods on to other smaller boats for shipping off who knows were. Then there are the smallest boats simply selling all manner of items to the larger boats which happen to be their homes too, we're talking anything from washing up liquid to pumpkins. Trading seems to be heavy in pineapples and rice and after a while we pull the boat up next to a pineapple wholesaler, climbing on to the top of our boat for a better look around while Nduc explains the intricacies of the exchanges. In between negotiating with an old woman who already has a boat load of pineapples but seems to be after more he carves us 2 pineapple “lollipops” - which is good for a 10,000 Dong (about 40p) tip of anyone's money. Back in the boat to head back with not a tacky souvenir in sight, I feel an avalanche of tourist mania is coming our way soon, surely? More tipping – and I'm consulting Sarah each time now, the maths and general value of money was beginning to do my head in – and we're back to the hotel for a quick shower before Mr Lap picks us up in the car (a Ford Escape, made sure I looked at the badge this time).

Only a few minutes outside Can Tho we stop at a building called Long Tuyen. It's some sort of communal hall/temple. Nduc tells us it's the best restored of its kind around and goes on to the detail of what it is, how it came about, and the rest. To be honest much goes above us in a combination of sheer volume of information and understanding the English but it pre-dates the French taking over, had some sort of permission from the King to be established there and many National heroes appear to be commemorated, cue large bust of Ho Chi Minh of course.

To the car then, which is where we'll basically spend the next 4 to 5 hours retracing our steps back to HCMC. Traffic isn't as bad it being a Sunday today, but unfortunately there's a couple of crashes on the way which in a universal rubber-necking style seems to hold us up more than it holds up the people coming from the direction of the crash itself. Spend most of the time just gazing out of the window at the passing scenery – most of which is urban and fascinating – or dozing. We stop at the same service area as on the way out. Now as if to re-iterate that it really is just about the nicest service area I've visited there's actually a wedding going on there! Lunchtime and they're onto the Karaoke already, it's truly awful and they all seem to be having a blast. We catch a glimpse of the bride, she's wearing a Western style dress which does make me wonder what they would've worn before and, while it's doing nothing to stop them having the day of their lives of course, that makes me a little sad.

After I lose, badly, the estimated time of arrival competition we're at the now familiar Saigon Oscar Hotel and say farewell to Nduc and Mr Lap. Time to stretch out for a bit, finish the Dean Koontz – which is a strange one – get the Cambodia leg of the photos onto Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/scfc9697/tags/holiday/ ), and prepare for a night on the town.

About 8pm we head for Underground, a bar just round the corner from the hotel which is in all the guidebooks. It's in a basement (obviously?) and is the sort of place you can imagine 35 years or so ago was frequented by the US army. Not that it's old fashioned or anything, there's US College football beamed live into here and, oh, Gillingham v Aston Villa in the FA Cup, not County v Aston Villa in the FA Cup, damn! A few drinks later and it's time for some dinner. Plenty of restaurants in our vicinity but of course the one we choose – is highly recommended in the guidebook – is open, has a table, but not enough food in the kitchen, they've been busy tonight! Well at least that's honest... As we stroll away and ponder where next to try the gentleman on the door beckons us to follow him. We do, well we try anyway, he's no more than 5' 2” but it's a struggle to keep up. He takes us to a different restaurant which we'll eat at tonight, decent recommendation, will shop around a bit more tomorrow night I think. Complete the night with a couple of drinks at Ice Blue and we're back at the hotel well before midnight – ah how time's change...

Day 10 – Ho Chi Minh City to Can Tho

January 3rd 2009

Up early and a hearty breakfast for both of us this morning as at last everything seems back to normal healthwise.

Not 100% sure what to expect today, all we know is that we're going on an excursion to the Mekong Delta, staying overnight then back to the same hotel in HCMC the next day.

So, at 8am as arranged our guide, Nduc, who turns out to be in his early 40s and – usefully for a guide – has got plenty of stories to tell, is waiting for us in reception. Outside is Mr Lap, our driver, and that's it. The two of us, our guide and our driver in a nice Ford mid-sized SUV type vehicle. Suddenly feel very important!

The distances we'll cover today are not great, Can Tho is only 120km or so away but due to the state of the roads and the general traffic we'll initially be driving for 3 hours, then we'll do a boat trip, then another 45 minutes drive before queuing for a ferry to take us the final hop to Can Tho. Place names are going to be a struggle to recount as the scale on the map in our guidebook is too great and we're not able to jot things down as we go.

Heading out we get some idea of how sprawling Saigon (it's now cool to call it Saigon, our guide is southern Vietnamese and that's what they all call it, not being Communists and all that) is, it seems to go on forever. This is also where we see some of the more poverty stricken side, although you can tell it's all very entrepreneurial, the buildings are all over the place. As with everywhere in the world it seems, building work is going on apace, with new residential “cities” popping up all over the place. Our guide is, of course, concerned that this is all eating away at the local habitat. It seems that much of the changes in Vietnam could have the usual range of long term problems, the replacement of rice fields for industry and fruit growing just one of them... He also makes an interesting point about the weather – will sound familiar this one – rain is forecast, and it shouldn't rain. Indeed it shouldn't rain again until the lunar New Year which is 4 weeks away. Flowers used for the festival are already blooming and the farmers are worried. “Something is wrong with the weather” - said it would sound familiar.

Our first stop, and we're on National Route 1 here, a road that stretches the full length of Vietnam to the Chinese border, is to pull in alongside a couple of tour buses – queue crescendo of beeping horns as we're blocking the way – to see a temple to the unique Vietnamese religion of Caodaism. Unique is a funny choice of word actually because while unique to Vietnam is was basically invented by a western educated Vietnamese bloke who decided to combine a whole range of Eastern and Western religions to form a new one. It's certainly a good one if you can't make your mind up, everyone's in there, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and more.

Pressing on with just a quick stop at the equivalent of a motorway service station – think Balinese style huts on a huge scale with seating for diners and ponds full of beautiful Lotus flowers and you're there – and by late morning we've arrived at Can Be(?) to take our Mekong Delta boat trip which will last approximately 3 hours.

Having sorted the sun cream and insect repellent out we head for the boats, getting on a San Pan with about 8 seats on it and we're away. Erm, yes, the two of us, our guide, our new – very smiley – boat driver and that's it. Feeling like royalty now!

The Mekong is massive and obviously any photography will not do justice to it. It is by far the widest river I've ever seen, totally guessing that it's probably about the width of the Solent. Nduc says “it's wider in some places and narrower in others” - which is fair comment. Hard to judge though because apparently what we can see as the other side are actually islands – this is the Delta of course so the Mekong itself is all over the place.

We go up one of the tributaries just to see life teaming on either side and on the river. Commerce is everywhere, the classic houses on stilts and houseboats anchored that'll apparently be somewhere completely different tomorrow selling their wares.

First stop is a place where they make things from rice and coconut. This seems entirely strange when we do stop and of course what leaps to mind is there's going to be a hard sell somewhere. We see someone making “pop-rice”, they don't have corn to pop so they use what they do have. Next they're sticking them together to make sweet rice cakes, all packed by hand. Someone else is making coconut sweets that look like caramels, all packed by hand again, finally our guide has a go at making rice paper – best leave that one to the experts. We then sit down, drink tiny cups of sweet tea and eat some of the rice cakes and other by products such as coconut strips. Then back to the boat... I think they forgot something? Nope, we were actually taken a route that bypassed the small shop before drinking our tea. It's like you have to re-write every preconception you have of the way people will try and get money from you. They were just showing us what they do, if we were desperate to buy something we would, if not no problem, it's incredible.

Then for some real cruising, and incredibly enjoyable just stretching out and watching the riverbank go by. We sample some fruit on the boat, the Lychees were very nice as were the tiny bananas, the Mandarin not so good.

Some time goes past, no idea how much but would've been happy for it to be longer, and we stop for lunch. First we catch the backend of a music show, eat some fruit, then we're lead by Nduc down some strange passageways, that while completely open you'd probably feel a bit nervous if alone, till we reach a restaurant area. This is all for tourists of course, many other Westerners are eating there, lots are in couples only too, so perhaps we're only lesser royalty afterall. The food is different, some bizarre, mostly tasty. Highlight is the Pork cooked in coconut juice with sticky rice – excellent.

Back on the boat and we cruise some more, our guide takes over the wheel as our boat driver takes a machete to a couple of coconuts and we're soon sipping the juice out through straws.

Now I'm not trying to be naïve here, I know full well that all this smiley excellent service is to get a good tip at the end and our boat driver certainly gets one. The point is that nobody is hard selling to us to try and get our money, what they're doing is making us feel incredibly important so that we feel like parting with our money, and it works. We feel great, they get paid, and we don't have strange wooden objects we've got to lug around the rest of S.E. Asia incurring extra baggage penalties! (Sorry everyone, no strange wooden objects will be handed over on our return...)

Mr Lap meets us off our boat journey and it's now back on the road to Can Tho. We have to queue for a while to get a ferry, doesn't bother us in the back but I'm certainly glad I wasn't driving. Here there are people selling for all they're worth but having thought we'd probably be surrounded, nobody even looks at us. They're selling corn on the cob and strange sounding pre-cooked and fermented pork stuff which even our guide says you need a strong stomach for. Westerners obviously don't buy this stuff and they're doing a roaring trade with the locals anyway.

The ferry journey is approximately 15 minutes, we see a bridge the Japanese are building in partnership with the Vietnamese. Apparently a whole section of it collapsed a couple of years ago, over 60 were killed, but they're working on it again now. It'll be 10 miles long(?) when completed. Later Nduc muses that the Japanese are great builders, but not in Vietnam. Apparently they built a tunnel in Saigon which sank!

Can Tho (It's Cantho in all the guidebooks, we have an obsession with putting Vietnamese names together into 1 word it seems. Viet Nam, Ha Noi, you get the drift) is a city that's been upgraded to be on a par with Saigon. Population wise though it's about the size of Manchester and according to Nduc there's no international industry here. Our hotel is the first 3* hotel in the Mekong Delta and is basic but fine.

Dinner is at the Nam Bo restaurant which has been booked in advance by Nduc and seems to be exclusively used by tourists. Our table on the outside balcony doesn't materialise, we'll have to sit indoors (no problem to us) and Nduc is not happy. We convince him we're fine and can sit. He hangs around recommending items off the menu, I've invited him to eat with us but he's already had a street meal so declines, then Sarah realises that he's actually waiting for some sort of sign from us to “let him go” for the evening, so let him go we do – 7.30am tomorrow to see the floating market, ouch...

Dinner is good, we share the house speciality for main course which is the “steam boat” - a sort of savoury fondue, but instead of the liquid being oil to fry the food it's a bubbling sauce which is transferred to your rice bowl. Very tasty. 3 courses, 5 beers, ahem, £13 for two.

Quick look at a major statue of Ho Chi Minh and it's back to the hotel for an early night ahead of the even earlier start we'll be having tomorrow.

Day 9 – Ho Chi Minh City

January 2nd 2009

Surprisingly good sleep last night, must be acclimatising well to the heat – it certainly got hot in here with the air con off – and desensitising to the constant honking of horns from the street below which appears to be in total chaos for at least 18 hours a day – brilliant chaos though, absolutely compelling to watch.

Quiet day today, went back to the room after breakfast, Sarah still not the best and with a 2 day Mekong Delta excursion tomorrow it just wasn't worth the risk of trying to do too much. Breakfast, while standard stuff, was amusing as we'd finally remembered to take up some of the (legendary) decaf teabags we'd brought with us. On seeing us drinking tea a gentleman from another table, the conversation was brief but I think he was Scottish, asked us where we got that from, the answer of course “we brought our own, the English abroad eh?” - well, we all laughed anyway...

Caught up on where the money's going, or surprisingly not going – expect a massive splurge in Hong Kong! - general pottering on the internet and have got seriously into the Dean Koontz Sarah bought me for Christmas.

Round about lunchtime we venture out onto the streets of HCMC for the first time and it is surprisingly relaxed. Not laid back relaxed, but the guidebooks lead you to believe that the moment you step out into the street you'll be pounced on by petty thieves, marauding gangs of children trying to sell you anything and everything while drivers will be dragging you into taxis. Well there's none of that, I think people here are far too busy getting on with building their businesses than worrying about tourists – yes, they need our money in general but so far it seems that the influx is being invested into things new. On a 2 hour walk I genuinely believe we are sold to less than the number of Big Issue salespeople you encounter walking from Piccadilly to Deansgate (if you pick the right/wrong route!).

Sarah wants something bland for lunch so, sorry Colonel Saunders, we head for KFC!

Our walk takes us down to the river, which to be brutally honest is not a pretty sight at all. Maybe after dark – i.e. when you can't see anything but a few lights! Later we walk up to Notre Dame Cathedral, which although yes the French did build it, it's late 1800s, brick, and while pleasantly familiar looking in this alien environment is instantly forgettable. The highlight architecturally is the Post Office – wait for the photos.

Finally we walk the length of Dong Khoi, of Graham Green then American Soldiers fame, returning to its former, more pleasant, glories back to the river before turning back up Nguyen Hue to our hotel. Without going too far we've experienced quite a bit of what HCMC has to offer and are reminded of the words of our travel agent James who said that HCMC was an experience rather than a sight seeing fest – and he was of course right.

Evening in the hotel with dinner at the 11th floor restaurant which has great views down to the street where you can get a real feel for the flow of the hundreds of motorbikes that travel up and down every minute – the neon and fairy lights really complete the picture of this energetic place after dark. Looking forward to getting back here after our excursion and hitting the streets at night.

Early start though, 8am pickup, so it's early to bed tonight...

Day 8 – Siem Reap to Ho Chi Minh City

January 1st 2009

Happy New Year to everyone, we ended up staying at the hotel and enjoying the party last night. Was all a bit strange, a 2 piece band from the Philippines – who'd obviously got the gig because of their vast range of English language pop songs, ahem – a 2 piece Cambodian “pop” band, with a female vocalist who genuinely hurt the eardrums, and some much more appropriate Cambodian music and dancing.

Sat with some more pleasant Sydneyites – a made up word I'm sure but gets the gist across I hope. Cut a long story short, a strange evening ended with some good fireworks, incredibly excited hotel staff, and lots and lots of noise!

Onto today and unfortunately Sarah's the one not too great at the moment. Nothing that won't straighten itself out soon enough, but we've been quite lucky in getting a day and half at the temples, if we'd overlapped with our illnesses we'd probably have seen nothing but the pictures in the guidebooks!

We leave the hotel around 11:30am to head for the airport. Sitting in our hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City, Siem Reap seems almost like a dream, just a few dusty streets, locals on motorbikes, and the odd luxury hotel dotted around. I don't think it'll stay like that for long, one of the Aussies last night said Cambodia was like Vietnam 10 years ago, well I've had a trip from the airport to show me that the current charm of Siem Reap is going to be replaced with, well, something different that's for sure.

Can't remember what strange quirk of Asia number we're up to. Having arrived a good 2.5 hours before our Vietnam Airlines flight to HCMC (guidebook coolspeak for Ho Chi Minh City), check-in is again a 2 minute painless experience, no queues, our boarding passes say we're due to board at 13:55 for our flight at 14:25 so all's well. $50 departure tax for the 2 of us is a bit steep I have to say, and they may say they take credit cards but don't believe a word of it, carry cash! By the time we get through security, about 10 minutes later our flight's on the board. 14:55 – eh? Not 30 minutes delayed, the timetable has actually changed to 14:55. Don't ask, I've no idea...

The flight, our first turbo prop of the trip but I suspect not our last passes quickly enough and after some glimpses of rivers and delta (it might be hot, but it's tropical so often very cloudy of course) we land at HCMC. First impressions of the runway area are like someone's painted over a 'Nam war film (the guidebooks call it “The American War” by the way, which I found amusing!) - rows upon rows of steel reinforced concrete arches – they'll be called something specific, but I can't bring to mind what. I'm therefore not expecting much when we hit the terminal but it's brand spanking new and, surprise surprise, not only are we through immigration in about 5 minutes but our bags have already done a circuit of the luggage belt waiting for us. Our driver is waiting for us at the exit – keep on saying phew and meaning it!

The drive to the hotel is interesting to say the least. Even less road rules than Cambodia it seems but with seemingly a million more vehicles. Nobody seems to get in the slightest bit stressed though as push bikes, motor bikes, cars, buses all jossle at major 4-way junctions with no traffic lights, Sarah comments that this would never work in Europe and of course she's right, no chance.

Our hotel is very good, perhaps what you'd describe as the first truly functional or “city” hotel we've stayed in, but if I had a room this size in London half the time I'd be very happy.

I think we'll be spending the evening here tonight so we can both fully recharge and get back on our feet for some sight seeing tomorrow. Our hotel is perfectly positioned right in the centre of District 1 and appears to be just a few minutes walk from the River Saigon itself – well we'll see about the few minutes anyway.

(Thank you to everyone who has said nice things about this blog either through comment or email, it makes the writing so much easier. I've just added a small selection of Bangkok photos which can be accessed through the Flickr badge on the right hand side. I've got many many more of course but for info the camera really struggled with the light conditions, while it was cloudy the sun was still very bright so my camera wanted to use flash even for distant shots which was obviously useless, sometimes then they might look a bit “gloomy” - which is a shame)