Going underground in North Vietnam

After 26 days travelling in Vietnam we have finally crossed the frontier known as the DMZ - the demilitarized zone - which separated North and South Vietnam during the American war. It seems like we've been travelling north for a long time through this remarkable country, but it turns out we've only seen half of it. To give ourselves a bit more flexibility with what we do next, we've extended our visas for an extra two weeks.

From the beautiful, quaint paradise of Hoi An (with so many beautiful clothes shops, that I can't begin to tell you how hard it was for me not to buy an entirely new travelling wardrobe!), we headed to Hue (pronounced Whey). Hue was the capital of the Nguyen dynasty in the 19th and 20th Century. It was a puppet empire, first for the Chinese and then the French, but left behind a stunning citadel full of beautiful archways, buildings and Chinese architecture - until the French, followed by the Americans bombed most of it to the ground.

We spent the afternoon wondering around what is left of this amazing place. There's a big restoration project in place, but I doubt it will ever be close to its former glory.

From Hue we got the 10:00 train four hours up the coast to a quiet, untouristic town called Dong Hoi. We're really off the tour routes now and far away from the 'buy one get one free', 'free drinks for girls' and 'cheap price' venders. Our soul reason for stopping here is the caves in Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park. We hired a driver to take us and an American girl yesterday... and WOW!!!! This place is amazing! We spent most of the day with our jaws on the ground.

The landscape around the caves is breathtaking - my geography geek really came out again. Limestone karst mountains which look like strange dragons rising out of the flood plain. And inside, the most incredible, enormous caves. First we visited Phong Nha cave, which has been open for some time. Only accessible by boat, this cave is something of a Vietnamese tourist attraction. The incredible limestone formations are lit with multi-coloured lights, but were probably the most beautiful caves I've ever seen. That was until we headed for our second destination - Paradise Cave. This cave only opened to the public a year ago. It's part of the longest cave network in the World, and it's massive! The stalactites and stalagmites in the cave are off the scale they are so enormous. We both find the fact that most people visiting Vietnam don't stop here incredible. We definitely got our fix of caves for this trip.

Tonight we're off to Nim Binh to see more amazing limestone mountains.

Love to everyone at home.

Jo x

From Na Trangh to the DMZ

We quite happily got out of Na Trang as we felt we'd somehow slipped out of Vietnam into an alternate universe- where there was no culture. Plenty of hotels, holiday makers and drunken tourists though.

And so in search of Vietnam we travelled up the coast for a few hours, with a very curious British couple in their 50's, who were acting like petulant 19 year olds on their first trip abroad.  Jo had to get out of the minibus that was taking us to the bus station just to explain that it was a transfer bus and that we would be getting a 'real' bus from the bus station, to prevent the curious argument outside the bus from going on any longer, later we discovered the couple had been away for 9 years and had never learnt any of the language of the countries they'd been to (some of which they'd spent 1 year in). We ended up parting company when they started to complain about a 12 pence charge for taking a taxi from Quy Nhon bus depot.

Almost as soon as we arrived we were aware we were in Vietnam once again, no foreign tourists, no hassle and cheap beer. We also had the opportunity to visit leper beach, so named because the beach actually belongs to the leper hospital right next to it, the beach though was beautiful and deserted.

The next day we rented a scooter and for the first time in my life I rode one, Jo at this point decided that my 10 minute practise was enough learning, jumped on the back and said "go!" Quite the leap of faith.

We had a fantastic meal for only a few pounds of clams, giant prawns and ladyfingers, Jo would like me to state that "they were the most amazing clams in the world ever" - Hmm.

From that provincial fishing town we've travelled to Hoi An, which is without doubt the most charming and untouched town we have been to in Vietnam, it was untouched by the war and the old town with it's yellow buildings, bridges and silk lanterns is like a time gone by.

Today we headed off to some Cham ruins (as it turns out we are in the kingdom of Champa) Which are a bit more ruined than they by rights should be because the site was bombed by the US ( This site dated from 4th Century AD to the 12th) and is now a UNESCO world heritage site due to the blending of Indian Hinduism with the local culture at the time, which was pretty obsessed with genitals.

Must dash, have to go and see my tailor for my final fit of 2 lovely suits - a strange thing indeed whilst travelling, but at just 80 quid a suit it's hard to say no.

Vietnam - Highland and Lowlands

So... we've done a lot in the last week! We left Phu Quoc for Ho Chi Min City (aka Saigon) on 25th May - taking a slight short cut via a small double prop airplane - more of a 40 minute "hop" than a flight. We giggled to ourselves as the baggage was unloaded from the plane including fish shaped packages wrapped in parcel tape. The Vietnamese literally go to the island to stock up on sea food it would seem!

Saigon

Saigon was the mayhem we were expecting - scooters everywhere, but virtually no cars. Crossing the road was a bit like stepping out into a firing range, you just had to dodge the bikes and hope that they avoided you too. On arrival in Saigon we decided to have a second birthday celebration for Olly. The official celebration had been fun, but lacking in the company that Olly would have liked (we were the last in the only bar on Phu Quoc beach by midnight, when we were sent off to bed). This celebration was slightly more sophisticated - think imported Australian steak and gorgeous French red wine at a very authentic French bistro. Some of the fine things that the French brought to Vietnam. The mean set us back a whopping $120, extortionate by Vietnamese standards, but was worth every penny! We continued the celebrations in slightly more backpacker styles at an Ozzy bar in the backpacker district.

Our first full day in Saigon was spent on a walking tour. We visited the fine art museum, wondered through markets and streets full of everything from fake designer clothes to antiques harking of luxurious colonial living, the museum of Ho Chi Min City and the Reunification Palace - a Gucci art deco palace which Olly took an immediate liking to. On several occasions he exclaimed "this is what I want my house to be like!" He particularly enjoyed pushing all the buttons on the ancient computers and communications tech downstairs in the war bunker.

We finished our tour with a visit to the War Remnants Museum - a memorial to the atrocities committed in Vietnam by the US. As well as tanks, planes and bombs left behind by the Americans, the museum houses harrowing accounts and images of the war, the crimes against humanity and the continuing genetic defects inflicted by Agent Orange. It was a dark place which left us both feeling thoroughly disgusted with humanity. Whilst the museum tells only one side of the story (that of the Vietnamese), it was hard not to leave feeling revolted by the US's indiscriminate approach to the war.

The following day we went to see the Chu Chi tunnels where the Viet Cong famously held out against the US invasion, living in a rabbit warren on tiny tunnels filled with booby traps and all their living conveniences. We were the only people in our tour group to make it to the end of the narrow winding tunnel which tourists could crawl through to get an idea of what it would have been like for the Viet Cong. It was hot, claustrophobic and uncomfortable. When I can I'll post some photographs. We also got to try our hand at firing an AK47 (at least I think that's what it was! Olly was more excited about that bit than me!)

Dalat, The Central Highlands

On the 28th we headed out of Saigon on the morning bus to the highlands. The winding bus journey took 5 hours - a comfortable experience on the whole apart from the fact that Vietnamese, used to travelling everywhere by motobike, do not have the stomachs for coach journeys. We had at least two people sitting around us who spent the journey throwing up.

Dalat is beautiful. It's a favourite honeymoon destination for the Vietnamese and was once a holiday destination for the French colonialists. As a result it's a mixture of OTT kitch and Alpine ski resort. It's hard to explain, but the flower garden complete with bushes and flowers grown into the shape of animals probably said it all. I felt like a kid who had arrived in Disney Land for the first time. We spent a very amusing day exploring the town on a tandem bicycle (we only argued once!) which included a ride on a swan shaped pedalo across the lake and a visit to a very Alice-in-Wonderland-esk guesthouse known as "the Crazy House". The owner, a French trained architect has let her imagination run wild to create something totally out of this world. You'll see what I mean when I can post the photos...!

We also explored the town's bustling night market selling all the local produce, crazy food and pretty much all the clothes you could think of. Olly brought a North Face jacket for $50 - very authentic!

Day 2 in Dalat, we took an Easy Rider tour of the highlands. Each on the back of an impressive motorbike, we were whisked through the picturesque countryside to visit local villages, tribes, waterfalls and small cottage industries. Our trip included visiting the flower farms - row upon row of green houses full of amazing colourful farms, a noodle factory, an incense factory and a silk factory. We also stopped at a coffee farm and tried weasel coffee i.e. coffee made from coffee beans which have been digested and then pooed out by weasels. It tasted surprisingly good. Olly didn't try the aphrodisiac rice wine aka "Happy Water" through, despite our guide, Duc's, encouragement.

Day 3 was probably the closest we've come to the elements on our trip so far. We'd booked ourselves onto a 'scenic' mountain bike ride through the highlands north of Dalat. We found out later that the ride is also known as the "Crazy 8". It turned out to be more strenuous, wet and frightening than either of us (or our guide) had expected. Right at the highest point of the ride through the forest on single track paths a typhoon blew in. To start with it rained like someone was tipping buckets of water out of the sky. Then the lightening, followed immediately by thunder started right over our heads, accompanied by a howling wind. In hindsight it was quiet comical, but as the path turned into a raging torrent of water, there was not much we could do but keep going. We did take shelter for a few minuets behind the trunk of a pine tree, but that's not really the best place to be during a thunder storm. To make matters worse, the paths that weren't rivers, were knee deep in mud. We had to keep stopping to clean it off our brakes which became pretty ineffectual. We both fell off our bikes once. I toppled into a mud bath before the rain even began. Olly went flying off a narrow path and down a bank into the trees. I was above him and just saw the tire of his bike flying through the air. We both made it back in one piece - despite looking very muddy and bedraggled, much to the local's amusement. By the end of the 33km odyssey we were both totally knackered.

We left Dalat yesterday, feeling that we could have definitely stayed of longer, and headed for the coast. We're now in Nha Trang, another holiday favourite for the Vietnamese, and the Russians. It has a beautiful beach complete with water park and jet skis. Last night proved a bit messy thanks to the 'free cocktails for girls' policy at the bar we went to. We're leaving tomorrow to head north to a less touristic part of the coast.

Jo

It's my Birthday and I'll blog if I want to!

Phu quoc, is a lovely island but doesn't really compare with the last island we were on, and it's definitely the low season here due to the rain. We did go on an interesting kayak tour through the jungle the other day where we had to persuade the guide to give us kayaks instead of getting in his motorboat and then paddled from point A to point A where we were then driven in a minibus to point B - a bit strange, but as Rory an Australian who lives here told me "they don't really understand what a tour should be". Still enough of all this for now. Time to go find a birthday drink. Tata Olly

Crossing the Mekong: Cambodia to Vietnam

13th to 16th May: Phon Phen, capital of Cambodia. It rained and it rained! Last year it didn't rain like this until August. Trust our luck. The mornings were sunny and hot, but by 2 o'clock it was bucketing down. Not such a problem of we were early risers, but Phom Phen's night life put a stop to that.

On our first day in the city we took refuge in a river side restaurant as a storm blew in. We got chatting to two Danish travellers and did not leave the bar until 8 in the evening. We blamed the rain, but happy hour also had something to do with it. A very random night followed involving a hot pot of duck with noodles and some very suspect congealed blood thing that didn't taste too bad, but had a curious rubbery texture. There were also 10 games of pool, a tuk tuk ride where no one really knew where we were going and, for Olly and the Danish guy, Michael, a random night club being hassled by Cambodian 'moto girls'.

Phom Phen also had some interesting cultural sites, a massive art deco market selling brand new iPhones for $38 (totally fake), Buddhist temples and an impressive Royal Palace. The most memorable day in Phom Phen, and perhaps the most insightful but depressing of our trip, was when we visited the Killing Fields, where thousands of Khymers were killed by the Khymer Rouge between 1975 and 1978, and S21 where they held and tortured the prisoners before execution. Both hold very painful memories for Cambodia. During this atrocious time of slavery, execution and starvation one in four Khymer people died. This relatively recent genocide has had lasting impacts on the people and economy of Cambodia and I left with a great admiration for how the people are bouncing back with such a positive attitude. I'm glad we saw this near the end of our stay in Cambodia, otherwise it might have changed our view of the whole country.

We left Cambodia on the 16th and headed along the river to Chau Doc in Vietnam. The border town is a lively colourful place with floating villages, a massive market full of living, dead, dried, pickled seafood, fish and all sorts of other weird and wonderful food. We stayed for two nights acclimatising to Vietnam's slightly bolder and brighter culture and took a moto ride up a very steep winding road to Sam Mountain, a local tourist attraction with stunning views of Cambodia. We walked down the hill passing row upon row of hammocks waiting for weary climbers. At the bottom we visited a temple and enjoyed a traditional play - not that we understood a word. Then we had the fun of finding our moto drivers to take us back to town. They all look the same!

We took the local bus south to Ha Tien, a pretty coastal town with a very French feel. We were the only white tourists in town, very few people spoke English, although everyone was very friendly, and we enjoyed being away from the backpacker trail for two nights. Being the only white people around, we weren't hard to spot and soon had a moto driver offering us a trip to see the local sights. He and his mate took us on a trip around the local limestone kast landscape - tall towers of limestone standing out of the plain. At the grotto pergoda Olly became the tourist attraction for a group of Vietnamese teenagers. The girls took a bit of a shine to him and all had to have the photo taken with him. I think he enjoyed the attention!

We left Ha Tien on Sunday and took the Superdong express boat to Phu Quoc island. We're now chilling on a beautiful resort lined beach. It's not the unspoilt beauty of Koh Rong, but it's still pretty lovely. And it's not rained for two days!

Jo

Koh Rong... So Right!

So, "where would be the best place to spend your 30th birthday?", Olly asked me... Well, my list of requirements were not long:

• A beautiful beach
• A hammock
• Good company (but no OTT drunk 'Brits Abroad'), and
• Rum (of course)

With this list in mind we found ourselves on a little gem of an island called Koh Rong. I'm not going to write too much more about it, the pictures say enough...

Koh Rong was pretty much perfect – a virtually undevelopedisland 2 hours from the mainland and away from the sleaze of Sihenoukeville (akaSin-Ville).

Hut 15 - Home for seven days

Development of the island for tourism only started a year and a half ago... so miles of white beaches, turquoise seas and thick jungle remain virtually untouched. Not for long through... there are plans for golfcourses, spas and resorts – and even an airport. So get there quick!

What more could you ask for? Handsome man, beautiful beach and a hammock!

We stayed at Monkey Island. A collection of coco huts (with the required hammocks) on the main beach run by a friendly Brit called Paddy and his band of traveling and Khymer workers. It is one of maybe five guesthouses on the island and the perfect place for birthday – plenty of rum, fire throwing displays and cool people to hang out with. On my birthday they put a table out on the beach surrounded with lanterns in the shape of aheart and even got me a cake shipped over from Phnom Phen! You can’t ask for more than that!

Before I drunk that free bucket of Sex on the Beach!

We spent seven nights chilling, exploring the jungle, chilling some more, playing volleyball on the beach (‘monkey rules’ style), chilling, diving, chilling and snorkeling. We also took a fishing boat trip onmy birthday with a German couple, Kris and Marika. I caught about 20 fish –Olly was still on ZERO when we got back to shore (despite an extra two hours at sea after the boats engine broke). He put it down to my birthday luck, I think it was more to do with his bad fishing skills :o).

Tee lost in world of flame

My birthday cake!

We also had some pretty amazing fish barbeques, including curried spider crab. I wish I had a photograph, but we were too busy eating it.The crabs where the size of dinner plates with sausages for legs. Delicious!

Oh, and I have to mention the phosphorescence! I've never seen anything like it. At night you go swimming in the sea and a million stars of glowing plankton light up around you. Amazing!

The only negative – and I guess there has to be one – werethe sand flies. My legs look like I’ve been attacked with a BB gun and itchlike hell. I would post a photograph, but they look too disgusting!

It was a great birthday. The only thing that could have madeit even better would have been having friends and family from home to celebrate with me. But still... I suppose that gives me an excuse for another celebration when I get home!

We're back in Phnom Phen, the capital of Cambodia now. We get our visas for Vietnam tomorrow. And it's raining - a lot!

Still, back to photos of that beach :o)...

Jo x

Jungle fun in Chi Phat

On Wednesday we headed for what the Lonely Planet descried as a destination for 'hardened travelers' - Chi Pat Community Based Ecotourism village in the Southern Cardamon forests. It turned out to be a fairly straightforward experience thanks to the welcoming Cambodians.

Our bus dropped us on the main highway across southern Cambodia at the foot of a bridge, in the middle of nowhere. A helpful mechanic at a near by roadside 'fixing hut' helped us to find a boat which would take us to Chi Phat. He drove Olly to the river front where he could book the boat - a 100m ride down an earthern road - a totally unnecessary luxury, but something we're getting used to in Cambodia - they don't like walking anywhere!

Once balanced with our rucksacks on the tiny fiberglass boat, with a suitably powerful engine, we were off up river through dense jungle, passing only a few fisherman on the two hour journey. Apart from the moment when our boat nearly broke down and it took a good 5 minutes to get the engine started as we drifted into the mangroves, it was a beautiful and very relaxing journey.

As we approached Chi Phat however, jungle gave way to open grassland and the impact of the intense logging and hunting became very evident. The project has been set up to bring income to this remote village and divert local people away from logging and hunting to earn money through tourism. In partnership with Wildlife Alliance, the project seems to have transformed the village. Anyone with the capital to do so has set up a guesthouse or home stay, local fisherman and farmers take you on tours of the jungle and there are several little restaurants and cafes. The village on the whole however is still very poor. Most people live in wooden huts, there's no mains water and electricity is very intermittent. The people were overwhelmingly friendly - especially the kids who never tiered of shouting "hello"!

We stayed for three nights in a very basic guesthouse - think bucket of water to flush the toilet and wash in. They had electricity, but this was primarily for the TV so that the girls could watch their pop music. We were told that the fan in our room used too much power, so was switched off!

On the first night we joined a local fisherman for "lobster" fishing - it turned out that we were actually fishing for large fresh water prawns. Using a head torch the fisherman speared the creatures out of the water as we floated around the river. It was a very peaceful - and amusing experience as the prawns kept trying to make a bid for freedom into Olly's shoes. Unfortunately we didn't get to have a go fishing ourselves, but we did get to take the catch home for dinner the following evening.

On the second day we joined a friendly guide for a trek to a bat cave and waterfall. He was as pleased with us as we were with him - he was desperate to improve his English, so we turned into walking English teachers whilst he told us all about the jungle and his village. Unfortunately we didn't see much jungle through! It had all been cut down for timber and the reforestation projects were not making much of an impact in the area we saw. As a result we baked in direct sunlight - I had a very burnt nose and Olly's trousers turned white with sweat! The waterfall was beautiful though. We thought we probably should have done the two day trek in order to really get into the jungle which was tantalizingly close.

On Friday we hired mountain bikes and went exploring.... until the heavens opened and a tropical storm blew in absolutely soaking us through to the skin. Much to the amusement of the local people who where all hiding under their bamboo roofs, we ended up spattered all the way up the backside in mud and looking like drowned rats!

The rainy season seems to have come early!

We're now back on the coast, heading for those 'paradise' islands tomorrow for my birthday. Hopefully the weather will be better there, but we're planning to spend much of our time under water diving anyway.

Jo x