• They let you fire guns (yes the government does)
• The people are actually really really nice
• Its laid back
• Its very tourist friendly

However there are some down points

• The road between Siem Reap and Poipet is bad - like really bad - like you can get air by just sitting on your seat - be prepared if you take this route to consume a lot of dust
• Its actually more expensive that Vietnam!

I recommend a trip to Cambodia, I would even recommend going to The Killing Fields and S21 (the prison) even though these are quite upsetting experiences. My brother Alex was quite surprised when I told him that human bones and rags are still present on the killing fields and the tower of skulls meant I really didn't want to stay long, especially as the Khmer Rogue didn't like to waste their bullets and just smashed people in the back of the head instead. It actually makes me quite angry that the international community let this happen (but Mark says this was due to Cold War politics), especially to let a former school because nothing more than a torture chamber. Most of the rooms in S21 have pictures of the inmates - they have numbers around their necks - we worked out that this was their cell number and it was upsetting to realise just how many people spent time in each cell - or how quickly they were sent to the killing fields, even more distressing was the fact the Khmer Rogue locked up small children and even babies - how were they going to write "confessions". From the stories we read it seemed like most of the inmates were people who had given up eveything to fight for the Khmer Rogue who had turned on them as many a corrupt regime does.

I think that is all until we get to Chiang Mai.

Vicki

ps - I only ever saw one "Danger Mines" sign.

Well, my apologies for taking so long to update you, making your anticipation reach unsustainable heights, but I now hope to provide a little entertainment for you by enlightening you on our activities. However, before I start, I must warn you that the following includes references to guns, red light districts and attempts to avoid British immigration controls, though naturally I have behaved impeccably throughout.

I’ll start at the beginning then (or at least, where I last left off)

Going all the Hue

Because of when the date fell, Victoria’s birthday was spent not in the nice hotel promised, but instead on a $2 boat cruise down the Perfume River to visit an assortment of tombs and temples. As entry fees were not included, upon reaching the first place we had to pay to enter we decided that because of the quite high cost (55,000D – around 2 pounds) to visit a place for about 30 minutes, we would instead spend our money on some soft drinks (rather than working out how many we could have bought with the money). This actually led, later on, to me leading what I would like to describe as a rogue tour group, who similarly thought they would save their cash. This in fact led to a far better experience than I think I would have had in a tomb, where we walked into a little town and I had a little kick-around with some school kids, though me wearing sandals inhibited me in performing kick-ups.

That evening we went out to celebrate Victoria’s birthday and yes, I admit, Victoria beat me fairly (it would be ungracious to suggest any lack of effort on my part). The evening also led to a further addition to the Vicki drunk section, and her spending at least 4 days trying to step onto a table in order to graffiti the ceiling of the DMZ Bar in Hue to spread the good name of Upminster (even though she is only a late-comer).

The following day we said goodbye to the couple running our guesthouse to move to more upmarket accommodation, though I couldn’t help feel like I was betraying them by moving to another place in the same town, particularly when they saw us walking around. In contrast to the last hotel we stayed at with a pool (Jaipur), I was quite confident that I would not catch any hideous diseases from it, with Victoria also swimming to double the number of people users whilst we were there.

On to Hoi An

A four hour bus ride brought us to Hoi An, which is a really nice town where we spent far longer than we planned to. This also marked the start of the weather turning much warmer, and increasing my forehead sweating exponentially.

Having learnt absolutely no lessons from Hanoi, we were tempted into having more clothes made because of them being a fraction of UK prices, though this time they actually seemed quite fitted to us. Indeed, we became sufficiently confident to have some shoes made, though this would prove quite a mistake on my part…

Victoria had already had a couple of shoes made in a particular store run by 3 girls, during which time one of the girls had (half-jokingly) suggested that I marry her and (or in order to) take her back to England with me, whilst I was sitting next to Victoria. I’d decided to try to get a hybrid trainer/shoe, and ordered a pair in a combination of tan and gum metal.

Unfortunately, when I collected them I was a little disappointed with the end result when they looked like clown bowling shoes. Embarrassment of having these monstrosities in public stopped me from properly examining them until I returned to the hotel room, when it transpired that I now owned my first pair of any type of footwear in gold, with the ridiculous contrast of colours the cause of my pure hatred for these devil-shoes.

Upon regaining my composure, I returned to the shop to tell them that unfortunately there had been some mistake on their part, as I had ordered a pair with tan and not gold. It was here that my relationship with the girls running the store started to sour, as they repeatedly maintained that the shoes had been made out of the colours I had ordered, even though they also said that the maker had lost the piece of material attached to the receipt.

Eventually, with neither side willing to concede any ground (just so you know – I would NEVER order gold shoes or trainers – football boots maybe, but not anything else), a compromise was reached whereby I would pay a few extra dong to have a (hopefully) wearable pair of shoes, or at least ones I would be less inclined to cover with petrol and burn. After an afternoon at Hoi An beach, which is a bit rubbish, had lots of sellers and a rough sea, I collected them for a second time and managed to leave on good terms with the sellers. You can see the results yourself on photobucket (I don’t plan to wear them with white laces)

Whilst in Hoi An, we were also forced to change hotels as the receptionist decided that me saying we might be leaving in a couple of days actually meant we would leave the following day, though this led to us staying in a far nicer YHA place which actually had a quite nice pool and, which was a huge bonus for Victoria, 24 hour free internet which I understand helped her pass the 6000 post mark on her feeder forum.

The only other thing worth mentioning is our trip to My Sore, which wasn’t great as most of the structures were destroyed by bombs, though the jeep ride up the hill side was pretty entertaining. Also, I am pretty sure I saw a snake in the grass about a metre from us, though to avoid panic I waited until we were well away from the area to share that information with Victoria.

And to Saigon

Well, catching our bus was an amazing example of inefficiency, with us being collected by one bus to be taken to another tour operator, via a series of other hotels, which was a 2 minute walk from our hotel, and then waiting there for 1½ hours for a bus which was not quite as advertised by our travel agent.

En route we saw Nha Trang, with the beach not really seeming worth the effort (from the coach window at least) and Mui Ne, which might. These broke up our mammoth journey of 24 hours, though I personally don’t mind such long journeys, particularly as you know the amount of effort that will be required to carry your bags at the end. Indeed, this meant we settled for a more expensive (a whole $10) room for one night, before settling in a more budge ($8) alternative.

In comparison to Hanoi, Saigon was far busier and hotter, meaning that I preferred the former, though the latter was still enjoyable to visit. One very noticeable occurrence was the number of middle-aged western men going out with quite young Vietnamese girls, with this quite strange-looking coupling rarely failing to get our attention (though we tried to be as subtle as possible). Anyway, on with the stories…

Going Underground…Again

Probably the most enjoyable day I have had since going on this trip was spent visiting the Cu Chi tunnels on a day trip from Hanoi. Although no tunnel expert, having only seen one other similar system before, I thought the day was absolutely brilliant, even if it was very touristy. Accompanied by a quite capable guide, we watched a video about killing Americans (actual term used on video – they even gave medals expressly on the basis of being a good American killer), and then saw a variety of methods used which had to be a little more inventive than dropping bombs (though hardly less painful).

The whole place was set up more as a celebration of Vietnamese efforts during the war, rather than attempting to display any of the more tragic consequences (which were instead focused on in the War Remnants museum), with quite a “war is cool” approach taken. Indeed, though references were made to American-killing in the introductory video, the rest of the exhibits were far more sanitised.

However, this is quite understandable, as seeing the actual consequences of fighting might have put tourists like us off taking advantage of the opportunity to fire real guns (my choice, and M16), an activity which literally blew a whole in our budget (I know how weak that is). Similarly, I had a great time going through the tunnels, which were a pretty tight fit (I had to crawl through some stages) even after they have apparently been widened for tourists, though had they reminded me of the number of people trapped underground after direct hits on the tunnel it might not have been such an enjoyable experience.

Trying to find a Rock and a Hard Place

Well, though her birthday had passed some time before, Victoria had decided she would wait until reaching Saigon before having her birthday dinner paid for by Daddy. This was primarily because she had noticed on the LP map of Saigon that there was a Hard Rock Café, which also meant that I had the opportunity to inflict the mortifyingly embarrassing treatment you receive when it happens to be your birthday (my 13^th birthday meal in Orlando remains firm in my memory). So, upon returning to the tunnels we set off, and following my directions, we reached the place where the restaurant was meant to be. Only, it wasn’t. Despite a pretty long period of searching, I remained stubbornly convinced that we were in the right place, though things did not look hopeful when a woman selling Hard Rock Café Saigon T-shirts on the road it should have been located did not know where the place was.

Now starting to lose a little confidence in my navigating skills, I decided that rather than just looking at the map showing where the place should have been, I would actually read the writing about the restaurant (which Vicki informed me she had read) and discovered that there was in fact NO HARD ROCK CAFÉ IN SAIGON, and the thing listed as such was a copycat anyway (explaining the lack of obvious signs that would have helped us). It then dawned on us that we were in fact in quite an “unsavoury” part of town, with the attendant female pedestrians that you find in such places. Making a hasty retreat, we then went on in search of other LP recommended restaurants, though ones which this time turned out to either have turned into jewellery or clothes shops. However, upon walking back to the area of town in which we were staying in order to eat in a restaurant we knew existed, things immediately got a little brighter as our meal was accompanied by a showing of Top Gun, bringing with it cries of “Goooooooooooose” to accompany our meal.

Otherwise, the rest of our time in Saigon was spent visiting the War Remnants museum, and making the necessary preparations to send 30kg of stuff back to the UK. Oh, and being a prize idiot, naturally that package included the photo-CD with virtually all of the pictures of Saigon that I wanted to upload. Fortunately, for all your benefit, I risked missing our bus to the Mekong delta to have another CD burned from the place as they had saved the pictures onto the hard drive, enabling me to upload a huge number of photos.

Well, having now written more than anyone will read, and also got bored updating the photobucket, I will retire and make you wait before I tell you all about our Mekong Delta tour and reaching Cambodia.

Mark

Me and Mark are still in Hoi An, for two reasons: 1) We like it here 2) Our former hotel kicked us out early

Now not to make you think that me and Mark are terrible guests as well as internet cafe users (remember Agra), I would like to point out in was their fault. We couldn't decide when to leave and we didn't tell them when we were but the hotel seemed to think Mark saying "maybe tomorrow" meant "please allow someone else to have our room, kick us out onto the street and please try and clean our room at 9am". We were not best pleased as we now are paying an extra $3 a night and I am a pikey. It did provide an interesting talking point for the day.

Today we went to the beach...it sucked, Mark said the sea was cold and it has a strong back current and the women on the beach had obviously been to the "Goan school of selling", which I really can't stand "its cheap as chips", some woman even tried to say my legs were hairy and shaved a small patch off with the piece of frigging cotton!

As well as clothes, we had some shoes made here, let it be known that Mark's next entry will be interesting, mainly because his shoes were crap and the woman in the shop wanted to marry him, but he will tell you all about that :)

Now I called this a rant time because i'm going to have one now, those who are easily offended please look away now. This time I have a problem with western women in south east asia - the popular bits. Let me tell you about a newspaper article (it was in the sun) I read a summer ago, some woman went into Tescos in a binkin top (the string one) and hot pants and Tescos wouldn't let her shop because they thought it was indecent. I think the stupid gappers here should take that story in. Hoi An is hot but I don't think that should mean you walk around like a cheap slapper, I have seen girls in Essex night clubs wear more. Tiny hot pants, mini skirts, halter neck tops or vest tops with everything hanging out whilst you walk down the street, it disgusts me to be honest, no wonder people think that western girls are easy, western girls make themselves look easy. We've been to India, its bloody hot there, but you don't see much flesh there, the women have dignity and only show their arms (and a bit of back when they wear a sari), just cause its hot doesn't mean you need to lose all your clothes. I'm not a prude, I don't cover myself up all the time as people who went to uni with me will know, but I know where to draw the line and I just think its a bit off, its fine if the locals show flesh but if they don't, then I don't think travellers should. Sorry to rant but I think its a bit out of order and I don't want to see it all and I doubt anyone else does (cause if you wear less clothes, you tan quicker and everyone who has been to Asia knows that white tanned skin isn't considered beautiful at all - so they aren't looking at you for that). Modesty....it seems to have gone out the window :(

We go on a 24 hour bus journey tomorrow.... I wonder if that will be fun or not.

Later

Vicki

Ps- I got to 6,000 posts on FFS :-)

Ok, first I apologize for the massive delay since my last post, though I trust that Victoria has kept you all sufficiently entertained since we left for Vietnam via Singapore. However, I now have enough uninterrupted time to update you on what we have been doing, even though it will be covering old ground.

Leaving India

I didn't really have enough time to go into any detail for Mumbai last time, though as it was now quite a long time ago all I will add is that though the sites were not great, we thoroughly enjoyed staying in the city and walking around the (thankfully paved) streets, particularly around Colaba. The only slight problem (excluding our accomodation of course) came when we tried to send our first batch of souveniers home, which led to me pleading with customs officials to rip up some of their records so we could combine our packages, which they fortunately agreed to.

Vietnam

After a stop in Singapore airport (which is well nice), our actual arrival in Hanoi was delayed by the least efficient passport control worker ever (though at least he didn't cover my passport in red ink, as happened on leaving India). Fortunately, the driver picking us up did not give up on waiting, and took us to the hotel we were staying as part of our Halong Bay trip, which had a Premiership-obsessed staff.

The first thing we noticed is that the weather is actually pretty bad here, though I appreciate it as it has actually made going out and sight-seeing far easier for us used to British weather.

Halong Bay

With barely enough time to catch up on our sleep (though enough for Victoria to go patch-mad on her bag), we set off to collect our junk-boat to cruise around Halong Bay. En route we were even treated to a live pig-slaughtering by the side of the road, with the noises making Victoria and the two Australian girls accompanying us feel quite squeemish (though it would not put them off their pork spring rolls for lunch)

Despite the pretty grim weather and limited visibility, the trip was actually really enjoyable, and included kayaking in the bay and visiting a few caves. I even managed to brave the water to use the Indian-purchased snorkel I had bought specially for the trip and was therefore determined to try, even though it was apparently so cold I was the only one not wearing a jumper, let alone in the sea. For the first time, I could legitimately consider other people (except Victoria the Midlander of course) soft southerners.

Hanoi

We returned to shore after one night on the boat, and had to move to different (i.e. cheaper) accomodation to that included in the tour, and found a nice place with over-friendly female staff, one of whom took quite a liking to Victoria and her lovely pale skin.

Our time in Hanoi was divided between looking at the shops selling a wide variety of fakes and pirates (as well as the more arty places) and visiting the many museums focusing on the war against France, and the lesser-known conflict with America (who knew?). By far the most entertaining was the Army museum, which substituted the minature paintings and decorative items in the Indian places for tanks and other weaponry, sculptures made out of shot-down American planes and LED covered battle-field diagrams. Victoria was so caught-up that she even continued her practice of saluting in pictures (which I might have thought would be a little risky given the setting).

We also found time to pay a visit to Uncle Ho and check out his old place, though the walk to the former led to the only thing approaching trouble we have experienced so far - when some guy trying to sell us more LPs took mine out of the side-pouch of my bag, and I then snatched it back, 2 Vietnamese officers appeared out of nowhere and one of them lost their shoe in the process of trying to kick them. Now, though I obviosuly abhor any excesses by state agents, the whole incident was thoroughly entertaining and, in some sense, a little reasuring (at least insofar as the speed of action from officials.

A Day-trip to the Perfume Pagoda

Just to show we have learnt nothing from our previous experiences of both temples and LP-recommended day-trip sites, we decided to visit, via coach and a boat that looked barely capable of keeping afloat whilst empty, let alone with 16 tourists stuffed in, the Perfume Pagoda.

To be honest, with the site itself a little confusing and covered in orange peel, which we spent 1 and a 1/2 hours walking to during the hottest day in Vietnam we have so far experienced (we decided to get the cable-car back), which at least meant the locals were entertained by the ridiculous amount of sweat running from my forehead. This was complemented by a tour-guide who was quite adept at losing the entire group and hiding himself under his jacket, and a boat-woman who was convinced Victoria was upsetting the balance of the boat, even when she was sitting in the middle, despite other members of the tour weighing at least 4 million times more than her.

Leaving for the DMZ

Eventually we had to leave Hanoi, and the awesome supermarket that kept us in beer and food. The actual process of leaving was made quite exciting because of the problems I had with getting my suit tailored (obviously Vietnamese men prefer a different style to what I am familiar with, though I ended up looking like I was wearing my Dad's suit), which led to a frantic dash to the train station (though we still made it with 30 minutes to spare).

Our Tour of Duty

Naturally, despite our limited combined knowledge of the Vietnam war (gathered primarily from Hollywood movies and Vietnamese museums - which should have provided quite a balanced view), we arrived in Dong Ha to begin visiting war sites on the back of a scooter (which, because neither of us had been on one before, added to the enjoyment).

However, before I go on any further I am going to get some food, so I'll finish this later.

Mark

1. Undertook lorries
2. Smoked at the wheel (if only that were a bloodhound gang song)
3. Peed on thr car (Mark claims)
4. Bitched about us to our hosts (idiot)
5. My fav overtaking on a blind bend on a mountain

Fun.. fun...fun! Ram (his name) is not the man - he didn't get tipped - yes honey you tried at the last minute and I had no alternative but to write something sarcastic in his guestbook (ie will never forget you - underlying meaning being you are a ******* prick)

Goa - lots of spiders and Brits and some very hot vindaloos consumed - in fact thats made me think - brits - kingfishers - curries - was that not the subject of the Fat Les song Vindaloo - yes they were obviously talking about Goa - and for the record on photobucket i got that crap henna on the beach in Goa (ps I don't have a tan yet)

Pune - lonely planet - ha ha thats funny - the places is crap and the sleeper bus we took - well I got no sleep on it cause well it was driven by ram the man's insane bus driving cousin (not actually but i imagine they took lessons with the same guy) oh and it sucked and Mark says i expect too much for 5 quid - the answer is yes i do.

Mumbai - nice city - hell hole hotel - pushed me over the edge it has I will never come back to India those thousands of flying things which lost their wings and went into my stuff and then died leaving their wings have really upset me and made me very angry too - oh and we had nice too - never stay their - and i will of course post the hotel name in big capital letters on the LP forum (even though I hateLP)

India sucks - simple

See you all in Vietnam

Love

Vicki