Countdown to Christmas...

Encountered the rain again for the first time since the South of India in Hue, and it rained properly. The streets were flooded and Rob and I got absolutely soaked. The following day it was still raining, we'd booked ourselves onto a tour up to the DMZ (demilitarised zone) where we went through the tunnels that the locals used during the war. The tunnels were used as air raid shelters, they used to spend anything from a few hours down them up to 5 or 6 days! Came backto Hue that afternoon and decided to get mopeds to see the rest of Hue. Its definately the best way of getting about and seeing the place. The next day we were waiting for Colm to arrive so we could all head down to Hoi An together. He never turned up though, so in the end we hired mopeds again and went a bit further afield. When we got back we had an email from Colm saying he had stayed on the bus and was already in Hoi An. Rob and I decided we'd like to ride the 140km from Hue to Hoi An. On the route is the Hoi Van pass, supposedly the best bit of coastal road in Vietnam. We set off at about 10am and got to Hoi An at 5pm. The pass was spectacular, the pass itself is about 15km long and when we got to the other side we turned around and did half of it again. Met colm when we got to Hoi an. Hoi An is where most people get their tailor made clothes made cheaply, unfortunately because we wanted to be in Nha Trang for Christmas we only had the one day in Hoi An so only Colm managed to get stuff made because he'd been there the extra day! Hoi An is a nice little place and the beach is beautiful and there was hardly anyone on it! That evening we got the sleeper bus down to Nha Trang, got there at about 6am on Christmas Eve. Booked into a hostel and then spent most of the rest of the day with people on the beach. Being on the beach was an odd way to spend Christmas, its certainly different. We managed to find an all you can eat Christmas buffet that was doing turkey and the all the trimmings. Was ok but for an all you can eat they ranout of things very quickly, we still had a good time though. Went out for a few drinks after that and then rang Simon on skype when we got back, he made it home ok and should be back with us in a few weeks time if Tegan will let him leave again! Today's boxing day and we giot the bus to Dalat, its inland a bit and really hilly, the french used to come here because its cooler!

Will be back on again soon to keep you updated,

Happy Christmas everyone.

Paul, Colm and Rob

Re-united....for a day!

The last blog I made was back in China, neglected it a bit over the last few weeks but we're back on it now. I left the guys in China and headed off to Laos. Took 30 hours on the sleeper bus to get to Luang Prabang in the centre of Laos, was suprisingly alright, slept quite well. I met up with Kim and her friends in Vang Vieng. Spent a few days there with them tubing down the river and drinking too much. Then I went off on my own again down to the capital Vientienne. Shared a room with a guy I met on the bus, although it took ages to find a room as the Asian Sea games were being held in Vientienne. Met a Belgian guy while I was eating and we went out for the night with a dutch and american couple we met, ended up having a really good night with them. Was picked up from my hotel the next afternoon to get the bus from Vientienne to Hanoi. 24 hours on a normal bus (not a sleeper). Was stuck on the back seat with the rest of the travellers. Met Yvonne from northern Holland on the bus. Spent the next day with her seeing the sights of Hanoi, its a really busy city, the traffic is like being back in India but its suprising how quickly you adapt to it again.

That evening we booked a sleeper bus up to Sapa on the border of Vietnam and China to do some trekking. Colm and Simon turned up at the hostel just as we were about to leave so had a quick catch up with them before we left (They were more interested in watchin Harry Enfields Scousers sketch on youtube...!). Got to Sapa at 7am and by 9am we'd found a room, left our bags and gone off on a 2 day trek through the rice paddies. The views were spectacular and the weather was loads better than we thought it would be, everyone had told us to expect freezing conditions but it was boiling, needed the sunscreen! Had some really nice food at the homestay and got an early night after a hard days walking. The next day Yvonne and I got up and watched the sunrise at 6am, was well worth it, was spectacular and more succesful then the one we got up early for in Tiger Leaping Gorge. Walked back into Sapa that day and decided to stay another night so we could go to the Bac Ha market. Cost $10 dollars for the market day, the market itself was really good, bought a load of stuff and got my hair cut, it had been annoying me for ages. the rest of the day was a bit boring, they just wanted to find things to do to justify the $10. That night we were back on the sleeper bus again and back to Hanoi.

Got to Hanoi at 5.30am and in a bit of a mad rush again booked a Halong bay tour and we were back on the bus again at 8am after a rushed breakfast. Got to the boat at lunchtime and got to know the rest of the backpackers on board. Spent the afternoon jumping off the top of the boat into the water (a lot higher than it looked) and then we went kayaking to a cave. The cave wasn't great but the kayaking was fun and the sunset (left) was really nice. Had a great evening partying on the boat and then the next day we were off to our own deserted Island to stay another night. Went tubing around the island (They tow you around on a tube behind a speed boat, I'll try and get hold of some videos that were taken, was great fun though) There were less of us this time and the generator packed up at about 6pm so we all played a few drinking games by candle light! The next day we came back to Hanoi, I was expecting to see Colm and Simon around somewhere, the one person I wasn't expecting to see was Rob, who jumped off the back of a bike in front of me having just come from the Chinese border. We found Colm and Simon and the 4 of us were back together again. Unfortunately Simon had just found out that his Gran had passed away and he decided to head back to the UK for a week or 2. Yvonne's trip was coming to an end aswell so she headed back to Holland, then Colm headed to Halong bay on his own so it was just myself and Rob heading South to Hue.

Hopefully I'll be back on to tell you about Hue sooner rather then later. We meet up with COlm tomorrow morning to head further South to Hoi An!

Love Paul

Ship Hanoi

Hurray......we have some nice shorts and t-shirts weather!!

Got here in the evening time, and took us a while to find the hostel. Dropped off the bags and went for some lovely local food. Enjoyed the free beer for happy hour (8pm til 10pm), until we drunk them dry, then off round town with a couple of guys we met at the hostel.

Up early for the free breakfast, met a sound guy called Roger who gave us a lonely planet guide to Nam. Off to the Ho Chi Minh palace which was nice and colourful. The mausoleum was closed so we had to go the day after. That night we met up with a guy we met in Guilin. Again made full use of the happy hour int hostel then off into town. Our first stop was full of very friendly boys, a proper working mens club. We met a sailor, which was quite odd as we were miles away from any sea. One in there then moved on, although the music was good!

Mausoleum to see Uncle Ho himself, then on to the army museum. They had a Huey!!!! Simon was happy. And loads of other crushed metal and tanks. The centrepiece was a load of wreckage from a US B52 bomber.

Luxury night train north to Sapa. Cabin to ourselves, I whipped Colm at poker.......he lost 30,000 Vietnamese dong. About 1 pound

Got to Sapa around 7am, quick bite to eat then off on a 25km trek. Saw some rice fields and nice hills. Hired a bike the day after, Colm had a go and did well. Then night train back to Hanoi..........

Rest of south China then on to Vietnam

Problems with accessing the blog in China meant we have struggled to post recently. So now we are in Vietnam we can give a quick update on what we have been doing the last few weeks. Prepare for a whirlwind tour.

After leaving tiger leaping george, we stopped for a couple of nights in Zhongdian (affectionately renamed Shangri-La by the locals for the tourists sake). Hired the old push rods and went exploring.

Then it was on to Kunming to get to Guilin via the train. We met the best dressed man here. He was a don. Paul departed our company in Kunming to go to Laos to see Kim, who we met in Goa, for about 10 days.

In Guilin we met Kristine who stayed with us for a few days (so back up to a full quota of people). After Rob fulfilling his constant desire for western food (especially McDonalds), we got a bamboo raft along the Li river to Yangshou. Arriving in Yang Vegas (as we named it) we had a surprise. We had some good times here, and managed to worm our way into teaching English for a couple of nights. This was in return for free food and dirt cheap accomodation. Only catch was 1 hour per night. The students just wanted to chat and drink so fine by us. They brought in moonshine, beer and fruit. Bonus. They entertained us with cards and after class took us to KTV which is a karaoke bar.

I (Simon) would have liked to stay here for a long time, but unfortunately our visas were going to expire soon. Rob and Kristine stayed here as they had loads of time left on their visas. So back on the road again. Off to NAM Colm and I went. A quick hop to Nanning then across the border the day after.

That was fun. At first the Chinese border guy told us we had overstayed our stay by 1 day, thus wanting more money. Finally we got it through to him that there were only 30 days in November!!!! Then on to the Vietnamese officials. Even though we had payed for our visas they wanted more money......10 dollars in fact. We blagged our way through because I had only a 50 dollar note. We were the only people on our bus that didn't pay!! Nice bit of corruption there then.

So on to Hanoi......................

Tiger Leaping gorge and the bamboo forest

We left the Tea horse guest house at about 9am and got up to the point where we were in the sun at about 10am, as soon as the sun gets on you its t'shirt and shorts weather again. Our second day of hiking wasn't as tough as the first day but still definately a challenge. We stopped at a few other guest houses on the way just for a break and a cup of green tea. Got down to Jane's guest house, which is the end of the main trek, in time for lunch. Had a bite to eat there and then decided we would take the ladders down to the river at middle tiger leaping gorge. We had to pay a pound each to get down the ladders which as you've probably seen from the pictures, they wouldn't be allowed in the UK. They were fairly sturdy though and it was definately worth the climb down to see the gorge from the bottom. Unfortunately its hard to see the scale of the gorge from the photo's. Its 2000m from the river up to the top of the peaks!

We carried on back up out of the gorge to Sean's guest house, stopping on the way for a quick dip in a pond to cool off! The original plan was to leave the next day but we decided to stay instead, we hiked up to the bamboo forest, we had a guide from the hostel for the first section and she took us to her grandparents house for a cup of tea. It was the grandfathers 73rd birthday and they invited us to stop on the way back down for dinner with them. We got up to the waterfall at the bamboo forest (suprisingly little bamboo) and had a little paddle in the water to get some better pictures, the water was cold enough that it physically hurt when your feet were in it.

We went back down to the hostel, bought a few bottles of wine for the birthday boy and climbed back up to the party. They had slaughtered a goat for the meal, see pictures. The food was amazing and they kept plying us with the local wheat moonshine. It was a little too easy to drink and Paul and Colm were a little bit merry on the walk back down to the hostel.

The day after we didn't really get much done apart from a little walk. It was nice just to relax in the gorge itself though. The day after that we got a minibus back to the start of the trek to pick up our bags and then it was on to Shangri-La. We had been warned that it was absolutely freezing there but it wasn't too bad. We hired bikes again, its definately one of the better ways to see areas. Some americans in the hostel we were in invited us out to a local bar with all the local tibetan dancing going on, we had a go at it but it was a lot harder than it looked, had a great time there though.