Kampot

Just spent a few days in Kampot, a small fishing village near the South coast. There wasn't much to do there, except walk up and down by the river and quench your thirst in the Rusty Keyhole - an English pub with the best BBQ spare ribs ever! Or so I thought until I winessed a pig murder today. We were on our way to Sihanoukville, when a pig's desperate cries alerted me to it's final moments. It's head in a wicker basket, it was literally having it's head kicked in by a kindly butcher. Now, I'm no expert, but surely there is a more humane method? Even Andy the Pork Fiend was affected by the ordeal and ordered beef for lunch. Other than this atrocity, Kampot proved to be a peaceful place, with friendly inhabitants.

Kampot, bizarrely, is famous for it's pepper. I can confirm, it was good pepper. The only reason for staying was to visit Bokor, an abandoned Hill Station set within National Park. The park itself is said to be home to tigers and elephants aswell as numerous birds and mammals. However, they are never really seen, as the growing number of tourists ensure. Visitors go to see the ghost town Bokor has now become. It was once a thriving village with a tea plantation, casino, Catholic church and a hotel, but due to Khmer Rouge activity, has been abandoned ever since. Due to it's altitude of just over 1000m, it was lovely and cool, allowing for a spot of trekking through the jungle. The swirling clouds of mist add to the spooky atmosphere in a 'Shining' sort of way and you are free to wander around the buildings. We did come across a nasty looking yellow snake..apparently not poisonous, but I wasn't taking any chances.

The slight drawback being that it involved a total of 6 hours journey on the worst roads ever - in the back of a 4x4! Somewhat bruised and battered, it was a good day in all and we rounded it off with a boat trip down the river, allowing us to compare bruises with our fellow travellers. Our tour guide assurred us Bokor will improve for tourists once they build some shops and hotels up there - they haven't quite grasped the idea of conservation yet. Don't even get me started on the litter problem!

Sihanoukville was a couple of hours by car from Kampot (if you include the tyre change). This place has lots of potential, but haven't explored too much yet. All I need to say is that there seven beaches here, one of which is on our doorstep. Andy has been on a mission for weeks to get me to aggree to staying in cheap- as- chips accommodation. He finally succeeded today. I've forgone my A/C and my hot water and we've holed up in a beach hut for $5! I think he might change his mind when he wakes up with a spider on his face. I can only hold out for our dear friends, Emma & Andrew who are coming to visit us in Malaysia. They are in desperate need of a luxurious holiday, so for their sake Andy will have to cope with palatial...

Bugging about

Cambodia is a really, really nice place!
I thought I might point out a few things that we're enjoying about the place and some other general thoughts. For a start the people seem alot friendlier here than their Vietnamese counterparts, as always the kids are very friendly, always waving at you and shouting Hello and not trying to sell you anything which is very refreshing. You still get motorbike drivers wanting to drive you somewhere, but the level of hassle here is alot less. Walking down a street in Vietnam, every shop owner pretty much would ask you to come and look at their stuff and if you did, would then shadow you all the way round the shop in the hope you might buy something. Here however you can walk down the whole street and the only thing that has happened so far is people smiling at you and kids waving! Sam reckons its cleaner here, I'm not so sure myself, but some people take their shoes off to go inside, so maybe a weeny bit.
The little street restaurants are the same here as Nam, they basically consist of red or blue plastic children sized chairs on the pavement round small plastic tables, a bit like a kids tea party, only kids parties don't tend to feature barbequed bugs and dried squid! Actually didnt see any bugs being eaten in Nam, but seen some massive ones here :( Theres always a woman whos doing the cooking and they tend to boil things in a big saucepan and double up the saucepan as a box for carrying their 'kitchin' implements.
Weirdly it's a bit more expensive in some ways here that Nam. I thought it would be dirt cheap here, but food and beers are definately more expensive. The Angkor beer that i'm drinking at the moment is $1.75, thats about a pound in the queens money! I realise its a big 660ml bottle, but this would cost me 30-50p in Nam. Outrageous!
The food is fairly similer to Nam as well, noodles and things; the noodle soup isn't nearly as good as it is in Nam, but the pizza they do here is very nice indeed! Been having the odd western dish the longer we travel about, you can only eat noodles every day for a certain length of time.
We have been lazing about on the coast down in Sihanoukville fo the last week, enjoying the lovely beaches and working on our tans! Blog to follow and photos to follow when I can get to somewhere with no techno problems....

Holiday in Cambodia

A 9 hour, dusty, sweaty, bus crashing journey ended in our arrival in Phnom Phen, capital city of Cambodia. To fill you in quickly, we left Saigon in Southern Vietnam at 8.30 in the morning, spending a rather tedious 2 hours at the border getting our visa for Cambodia. We continued on our journey and after a while arrived at a river where our bus had to drive onto a ferry to cross. However as we were driving onto the ferry we were about to come to a stop behind a big lorry when our bus decided to lose all power to its brakes and rolled forward alarmingly into the back of the lorry, smashing the bus window and traping the driver behind his wheel. Luckily the driver and everyone else was unhurt and after crossing the river we swapped our bus for a mini bus and with a fresh maniac driver sped our way over an incredibly bumpy road to where we are now, the Okay guest house and yes it is OK, cause its got AC, cable TV and hot water all for $10 (about 7 pounds).
Cambodia is a small country, roughly the same size as the UK minus Scotland ( no bad thing some might say ) and has a population of about 14 million, 1 million of which reside in its capital, Phnom Phen. On our very short time here so far, its abundantly clear that its a much poorer country than Vietnam. Miles poorer in fact. Its had a very wartorn recent past and so is only now starting to get itself back on its feet, not helped by its apparently still very corrupt goverment. Just driving here and driving around the city, some of the beggars you see with missing limbs, the shacks some people live in and the general filth and squalor is pretty hard to see. Its obviously not all like that, theres some nice bits too, but Vietnam seems as modern and developed as Japan now.
Today we having been seeing why this country is still in a bit of a state and that is largely thanks to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot got into power following civil war in 1976 and until his regime was kicked out by the Vietnamese in 1979, proceeded to bring Cambodia to its knees. 2-3 million people died during that time, most in the fields where they were forced to work, having been relocated there from the citys. We went to see S 21, Tuol Sleng prison today where 17,000 people were interigated and tortured and of those only 7 are known to have survived. The really sick thing about this prison is that it was a childrens school before the Khmer Rouge got their hands on it and divided all the classrooms into cells and torture chambers. They had photos of all the victims, because like the Nazis the Khmer kept vey accurate records of their victims and what they did to them. It was nasty veiwing and so naturally we wanted to do something a bit more light-hearted afterwards....so we went to see the Killing fields. About 15k away on another really bumpy, dusty 'road' are the Killing fields. It would be a fairly ordinary field, except this is where most of those 17,000 from the prison were brought to be executed. In 1980 they excavated half the field and you can see the where all the mass graves are. Its very, very odd walking around the place. You can actually see bits of clothing stuck in the ground, the owners now long dead. There is a memorial tower that you can see pictured and its full of skulls to the ceiling. We saw some idiot (politest word I could use) tourist actually pick up one of the skulls for a photo, we were gobsmaked at his lack of respect, but one very evil look from Sam, as well as banging on the window next to him and also mouthing 'what the f*** do you think you're doing, you bleep bleep' and he quickly put it back. Some people...
After the horrors of the morning, we have been to see a temple and a palace this afternoon. The temple was average in the temple stakes and not helped by people selling very small birds. The catch? There were about 50 birds in a small cage and you paid your money to release a bird... nice. The palace was closed, but in the grounds was the 'silver pagoda'. Silver not on the outside, but on the inside where there were 5000 silver tiles that lined its floor. It was all very nice and lots of buddha statues everywhere as usual in these places.
Well that's our first eventful 24 hours here in Cambodia, its a sweltering 35 degrees here and so we are off to the coast in the next day or two to relax by the sea.

Please feel free to cast a glance at our last Vietnam Slideshow.

Miss Saigon? Probably...

Well here we are on our last day in Vietnam. Saigon - or should we say Ho Chi Minh City is a bit mental, but great. There's certainly more atmosphere than we felt in Hanoi, but maybe that's because we are more acclimatised. One noticeable difference is the temperature. At time of writing it's 35 degrees (and it's 21.30pm)...we are stewing a bit, at least I am. We have learnt so much during our time here...but also so little! Yesterday we were royally ripped off my a pair of cyclo drivers. Stupidly, we hadn't negotiated a price before the journey started. All they did was drop us off at the post office (where we spent 40 minutes) and then drop us at Reunification Palace. They then tried to charge us 300,000 VND for what was esentially 20 minutes cycling. That, Bison is ten quid. I think that's more than the monthly wage, but they got very irate when we argued the toss. We know how much things cost by now but it was a bit like being attacked my the mendhi-brandishing gypsies in Pushkar, India...your only hope is to throw some money in their general direction...so we gave them 200,000 VND and legged it. It may not sound like much but is in fact 1/6 of our total daily budget!!

Moving swiftly on, Reunification Palace was crap. Not really sure of the significance of it, as we'd just posted our Lonely Planet back home...on a ship, like so many of our other packages we are destined to never see agian. Then we braved the roads and took another death-defying trip on the back of a motorbike. Speaking of which, Andy and I had a very minor RTA a couple of weeks ago. We didn't want to worry you all, so we kept it quiet until his injury had healed. Basically, it involved us taking a 'better' road back from Marble Mountain...what they forgot to mention was that the road wasn't finished. Several km down it, we ended up in a sandpit and basically were forced from the sandpit at a pathetically slow speed, into a small wall. It was very undramatic, but Andy sustained a nasty scrape to his leg. He was very brave though, and a very kind local lady dressed said wound with Betadine and bandage. It drew quite a crowd of observers and soon we were on our way again. So he hasn't sustained some terrible infection, which was my concern and if anyone asks, he's saying it was a shark bite. I was completely unscathed :)

So we had a cheery day today - first of all we visited the Cu Chi tunnels. It's a network of underground tunnels stretching 250km on three levels, the deepest being 10m deep. This was where the Viet Cong (VC) hid for 26 years in order to outwit the Americans during the war. Bear in mind, they had only a hand trowel to construct the tunnels from the hard clay-based earth. It was a great tour, our tour guide had himself served in the Saigon army and despite the size of him, looked very tough. The squeezing though the tunnels part of the trip was rather scarey - we kept wondering why every now and then people would resurface from the hole they descended - we soon realised. It was dark (obviously), it was hot, and if you suffer from claustrophobia, this isn't the trip for you (we didn't make it to the end of the 50m tourist section). Though all passageways were very narrow and low (necessitating being on hands and knees), some of the entry and exit holes were so narrow, the VC had to dislocate their shoulders before entering.

The whole Cu Chi area was once a peaceful place to live with fertile land bearing many fruit trees. They have eventually re-grown, but for years the whole area (and those for many miles beyond) was defoliated with Agent Orange, dropped from the fighter planes. Not only did this enable the Americans to have a clear view of combitants and civilians alike, it also had devastating effects for years to come. This mainly took the form of severe birth defects and carcinomas, so it's legacy lives on today.

It really is no wonder the Vietnamese won. The tunnel network provided them with areas for living, cooking, fighting and there was even a hospital down there...just like MAsU it was (but with more equipment). They devised a system whereby cooking smoke exited at a certain distance from the tunnels. Then there were the booby traps. These things basically took the form of trapdoors concealing many bamboo and metal spikes...nasty. Such cunning and will to survive under such harsh conditions was fascinating to learn.

And then, the highlight of the day as Andy volunteered to fire an AK-47. This aroused much excitement amongst the male members of the tour - you could hardly breathe for all the testosterone swarming about. I just don't understand boys! This is where they make their money - each shell cost 18,000 VND (about 50p). So armed with 10 shells, off went Andy, wearing his combat gear (i.e. his gay blue shorts), brandishing his new toy. The noise was terrifying and sadly he didn't manage to hit the target (this fact will be disputed, but he didn't win either a goldfish or a coconut).

We then went to the War Remnants museum, which really illustrates the horrors of the war with shocking clarity. It really gave us the full impact of the atrocities against civilians - mainly women and children, leaving nothing to the imagination. The photography was amazing, but very brutal and came courtesy of war photographers and journalists, many of whom were eventually killed.

The torture methods of the Americans were depicted in great detail and featured horrors such as water torture, nails being driven into fingertips and slow but meticulous limb amputation. Prisoners were shackled at all times and held in the notorious "Tiger Cages," characterized by a walkway running along the top of the cells, allowing the guard full observation of those incarcerated (as experienced by Papillon during his time in solitary confinement). Torture aside, the conditions themselves were horrendous. Prisoners were only allowed half a cup of water per day and if they weren't killed by torture or disease, they were permanently disabled through repeatedly broken limbs or severe muscle wasting.

What a day. Well and truly ready for a distraction, we scuttled off for a beer. Unfortunately, I have finally succumbed and bought some Thai fishing trousers! I'm sorry, but they are just so comfortable!!!!! I also have some lovely coconut beads, but I promise to stop before the dreadlocking process begins... and can you all please stop putting rancid photos of me up on CCU's screensaver? And please could Andy stop taking them? Thanks!

Next destination, Cambodia...

Photo of Andy and Ak-47 action to follow...

Dive, dive, dive!

Before we headed further south to saigon we did a spot of diving in the sea off Nha Trang. It was our first dive for about 18 months and so we had a little refresher dive first. We dove down about 5 meters and started to practice some basics like clearing your mask of water. At this point Sam got the fear about it all and had to go to the surface with the instructor and get some counselling. I gallantly agreed to carry on the dive with the other instructor in the interests of er, science. On returning to the surface 3/4 of an hour later, I was pleased to discover Sam had relaxed a bit and over a tuna sandwich lunch on the boat, she bravely agreed to go on the second dive. She totally relaxed on the second dive and had a brilliant time I'm chuffed to say, she came very close to calling it a day, which would have been a great shame, but now her confidence is boosted by a good dive and once again we can be buddys under the sea (not on land!). We saw some amazing fish and the visability was about 15 meters which was fine. On my first dive I swam through a cave tunnel only about 3 meters long, but quite exciting, am not going to be doing any cave diving as am too claustrophobic, so don't worry Parents :) Anyhows, the cave was full of fish, a few hundred small ones, an absolutely incredible sight, it was just annoying that Sam was mid-counselling on the surface, to be honest though, swimming through a small cave was probably the last thing she would have wanted to do! On that lonesome dive, I saw my first Lion fish trying to hide itself behind a rock, poisonous spines on its back, but i mouthed 'Not the Face' and it went on its way! Also saw some Parrot fish , seen them before in Tobago, nice little critters. With Samantha in tow, we saw a small sea snake, absolutely superb! Saw some cuttle fish, there were four of them just hanging in the blue, in a diagonal formation for some reason. Also saw some lovely trumpet fish, about a meter long and a mooray eel, which the dive instructor preceded to torment by mocking it with his fist, luckily for him the eel was to busy being lazy in its rock house. All in all a very good couple of dives and nice to do after such a long time. Sam is now looking forward to the next dives, possibly in Cambodia, maybe not till Thailand, but shes all ready to be my undersea buddy :)

Links

As you may have noticed, there can be a longer delay between posts than there had been previously, this is due to annoying technical problems we are encountering in alot of internet places here in Nam :(
I thought I might point out the Links on the right hand side of this website for your veiwing pleasure in case you ever get bored with our blog content or those long waits :)
First up is Windcheater, tales of Japan and his 'musicical' efforts by Alex, our man in Hiroshima. Not for the faint hearted is Cut thumb , a rantathon by Mr. Jamie. New to my Links section is a quiet momentum , computer painted amusement from Spencer, resident of Hiroshima city. Close to my heart is Ruby's blog , watch my neice growing up, shes proper gorgeous! chem7 probably isnt going to be updated for another 10 months or so, but if you want to see the drivil spouted by a 34 year old who still thinks hes 15 theh heres your chance. Toon for those who football has passed by, is the BBC's Newcastle Utd web page, the greatest footy team in the land! (and Yes I know we haven't won anything for decades). Finally Stuff on my Cat is what it says! Genious! The other links are self explanatory.

Hoi An Slideshow

Nha Trang

Well, I think Andy has eloquently encapsulated our feelings for what is now our favourite country! At times we wonder if we could have perhaps skipped some of the places in the North of Vietnam, to allow us more time in the glorious South. But in reality, they probably served as a good grounding for the rest of our travels. We certainly wouldn't have been in touch with the 'real' country as represented by the culture of the Hill Tribes of Sapa or by the unchanged-for-centuries living within the Old Quarter of Hanoi. It's amazing what a spot of sunshine and a beach can do for your optimism. Especially when the beach just happens to be equipped with the most comfortable sun beds, a massage hut and a lovely bar with pristine loos. All that AND there is a feller on guard to ensure that no hawkers disturb the tranquility. How fantastic. We've even discovered a reincarnated Mark Walker :)

We had become resigned to being prodded awake
by old ladies touting their mangoes and after
several minutes of "No thanks, I just had one," them sitting down next to you for the next half hour, gumming away whenever you dared look at them. One particular lady is destined to adorn the walls of our next home (when we get one). She was most affronted when, after many hours of attempting to sell us fruit, I had bought a dragonfruit from Lily. So down she plonked and whittered away in Vietnamese about Tiger balm for ages. I ended up not only with a pot of ubiquitous balm, but also with a dubious bottle of green oil which she kept snorting, as if to demonstrate it's magical properties. I'm only hoping it's not some sort of beauty elixir, else I better start worrying. I felt it was the least I could do after taking that brilliant photo :)

Nha Trang definitely has a more touristy feel, which always brings good and bad to a place. There's a supermarket which sells shampoo, wine and Nivea! It also seems to sell lizards, dried and mounted on a palm cross (we think for a convenient snack, but we haven't asked). Our hotel is spotless, very friendly and only in it's second week of opening. Any shortcomings are immediately countered by the wonders of the beach...a lovely sailing club (great nibbles), the comfiest sun beds imaginable, a massage hut and possibly best of all, a feller on guard to keep the hawkers at bay! It still manages to maitain a laidback air, as demonstrated by us waiting two hours for our dinner to arrive the other night. So we are finally able to read our books in peace and get planning our next destination, whilst working on the tanning. Having said that it has now been raining torrentially for 24 hours!

The other day we took a boat tour of four islands. Rather than the relaxing voyage we had anticipated, we were subjected to a full day of 18-30s booze cruise shennanigans on an overcrowded rowing boat. It was all a bit hectic, with the tour guide setting up a floating 'bar' in the sea. He seemed to be enjoying himself more than anybody else and wobbled around for the rest of the day. He took us to a bizarre aquarium, full of huge fish in tiny tanks, all aboard a sort of concrete "Ghost Ship." We did meet a friendly turtle called Emma, which made everything O.K. There was also a nice reef to snorkel around with some lovley coral and colourful fish. The visibility was actually quite good - about 15m, which is better than expected for the time of year...we hope to dive in a day or so.

Yesterday was spent lazing on the beach again, where I sampled a massage (supposedly 150,000 dong (a fiver) for 50 minutes. It was very no-nonsense and a shorter time than promised. I will keep searching...I'm desperate for a repeat of the amazing massage I had in India. We then took a motorbike upto the enormous seated buddha who resides over Nha Trang. Rather like the statue of Christ in Rio, it can be seen from all over the city, but you only realise its scale when you're up close. Sitting 27 metres high, it was an awesome sight as the sun set behind him.

Monkey Island is near here and although it sounded tempting at first, the monkeys are a bit too tame, some with a nasty temper. Dogs aside, monkeys are a bit rabid but this wasn't what put us off. Rather, it was the advertisement of a monkey and bear show. We've seen the photos. Monkeys in dresses riding bikes (surely a danger in itself?) and performing bears. I think many people know my views on dancing bears, which is all very hideous in itself, but here they make them wear a Ra Ra skirt aswell...unbelievable...

Marble Mountain

Monday, we hot-tailed it to Marble mountain on the moped. 19k north of where we are, just below Danang. One of the nice things about riding about on your own moped is that it's hassle-free, no one selling you anything, or so we thought. Whilst riding along (very carefully Tom) a girl on another moped rode along side us and started chatting. Basically she ended up leading us straight to the mountain, however we did have to look at her marble shop (theres always a catch) and have a bit of lunch at her shop as well. To be honest after walking round the mountain for 3 hours we were hungry and it was a tasty lunch so everyone was happy, she even kept an eye on our moped.
The area around Danang is a flat plain next to the sea and then you come across 5 massive, well, mountains really. Its a bit like Halong bay, but on land and only 5 big rocks, not 3000. You can walk about one of these mountains and it is indeed made out of marble. The area is famous for its marble sculptures which are exported round the world and there are dozens of shops all round the foot of the mountain filled with marble lions, horses, buddhas and other assorted creatures. Apparently they get all their marble from China now, otherwise there would be no marble mountains left for the tourists to visit.
The main mountain then: We climbed up some steep (guess what...marble) stairs up into and onto the mountain. Let me explain at this point that its absolutely riddled with caves and over the years monks (I presume) have carved out various alters and buddha type statues and these are one of the main reasons for visiting. At the top of the stairs is..... a temple :) A nice, er, concrete statue of a white buddha and a very attractive 7 tiered pagoda with some gorgeous veiws of the surrounding area. Just behind the temple was the entrance to one of the caves and followed by an old lady trying to sell us incense, we ventured in. There were some holes in the ceiling of the cave allowing enough light in to see and there was a small temple type building inside. On one side of the temple was a small buddha statue and on the other side another passage way. Through the passage we came into a much bigger cave which had a massive buddha carved out of the rock, a truly impressive sight. We came out of the cave and followed the path around through the mountain. It was a beautiful day and we were both working on our new lobster appearances. We went into another much smaller cave and passed a buddha statue and then following some local kids, we had to squirm our way through a narrow opening and back out onto the mountain path that led us straight to the top of said mountain, from where we got an awesome view of the beach and the other mountainous rocks. Sam was getting a bit hot and bothered in the baking heat in the open at the top :), so we headed down through the trees on a different path which led us to a clearing and yup, another temple. We stopped for a rest and Sam had her now daily coconut and on we went. The next cave was the best by a mile! We both felt like Indiana Jones! Walking down into the cave, under a stone archway, down some stairs and round the corner we were greeted by a massive cavern with beams of light arrowing down from holes in the ceiling. There was the usual buddha cut into the rock and some small alters, and also a small temple which had the light cast directly on it. It looked amazing, so....Temple of Doom :) Luckily there weren't any nazis about as I'd left my whip back at the hotel. It's hard to describe how amazing this cave was, but hopefully you'll get the idea from the pics. After the cave we wondered about the last bit of the mountain enjoying (at last) the fantastic weather and after having lunch, zoomed back down the coast to Hoi An. By the way, price wise, the moped cost $4 a day and a litre of petrol was about 40p (I presume that's cheap) and $4 dollars, about 2 pound 50. We are dealing in 3 currencies at the moment, most things are in Vietnamese Dong, but then some things are in Dollars, all hotel prices are say $10 for a room, but we always use Dong :) and of course then we're translating everything into pounds, it gets a bit confusing at times. Luckily I have my trusty calculator that I bought in Japan for 200 Yen :)
The next day and our final day in Hoi An was spent lounging on the beach and sorting out Sams clothes that she'd had made. Hoi An has been the turning point for both of us on our Vietnamese adventure, at some points I was seriously wondering why people would come to this country, but over the last week, me and Sammy have seen it in a different light. The sun has helped alot, blank grey skys for 2 weeks casts a dirty, grubby glow on things and moving south, everything has improved. You get alot less hassle for some reason and people are definitely more friendly. We are now in Nha Trang which is a beach resort basically, it's like being on holiday in Turkey or somewhere like that, but miles cheaper :) Long white sandy beaches, cheap diving and cheap beer, its wicked!! The journey down from Hoi An to Nha Trang really changed things for me. 13 hours on a bus, but the scenery all the way down was unbelievable. This is without doubt, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to! The countryside is so green, I've never seen anywhere as colourful and fertile as Vietnam. The rice paddy fields stretch for miles with mountains always in the background, everywhere else is covered in trees, mountains included. Also, the sheer amount of massive rivers that you pass, now all of them green or blue adds to the whole picture, its staggeringly beautiful and I'm so pleased we're here :)

"Very cheap, very nice..."

We are loving Hoi An...Mainly because it's hot (around 28 degrees) and also because it's very pretty and there's lots to see. Today, we pootled off to Cua Dai, a fantastic white-sand beach. It stretches 30km along the palm-lined coast to Danang. Within seconds of arriving, I was pounced on by three women - one bearing fruit, the other jewellery and the other offering a foot massage. A winning combination if ever there was one. Before I knew it I had committed to not only a foot massage but also a back and head rub, some beads, a mango and a dragon fruit. Lou lou (the one with the beads) told me I was born in the best year - that of the dragon and that I would live a long and happy life. She asked me where my boyfriend was (at this point he's become bored and gone for a beer) and pointed out that he was a pig (Chinese starsign, that is), which meant that he works hard and sleeps well. "Why you no marry?" Before I had chance to answer, she summised "'cos you no horny?"

Lou Lou commented that my toes were like baby's fingers, and that she loved my skin. I noticed that every part of her skin was covered and was even wearing wollen gloves - to keep her skin white. Upon Andy's return, she noted his grey hairs and said that really it was about time we were married and got horny. Her beads were "cheaper than Tesco" and when I tried to barter a bit she replied "I no come down in last shower!" Hilarious woman. So it would have been a very relaxing day, had we not been approached aproximately every 7 minutes and offered the same thing over and over again...

We've hired a motorbike and Andy is out practicing on it. It was a bit terrifying at first, but we are getting into the swing of it and it is a really easy way to get about. Yesterday we visited My Son - buddhist temple ruins from around the 4th century and having been rebuilt several times since. It was partially bombed during the Vietnam-American war, but damage was minimised when an expert on this type of architecture wote a letter to US President Nixon to protest this. As a result, the US forces continued to kill the Viet Cong, but no further damage to the monuments was sustained.

The type of architecture is known as Cham and is characterised by its use of brickwork, and decorated with Hindu art. It is Uenesco heritage site and of great historical importance, alongside other Indian-influenced civilisations throughout Southeast Asia, such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Ayuthaya in Thailand. The Cham people adopted Hinduism from commercial relations with India. The whole area is set amongst lush greenery and is a tranquil escape from the hard-sell of the town.

Hoi An itself is centred around the historic Old Town. Unlike the old quarter of Hanoi, it is very well preserved and looked after. Within its walls are many beautiful pagodas and temples (mainly of Chinese influence)... and about 300 tailors! You can have anything you like made, replicated, altered or repaired. I will get round to it, I'm sure but was very disappointed with my experience of this in India. Trying to persuade Andy that having a bespoke suit made will be a very cheap investment, but you know what he's like...

The food here's very good. Local specialities include the addition of a crow to the snake wine; Cao Lao (regional type of pho) and the white rose, a type of steamed shrimp dumpling. There's lots of good, fresh fish - usually grilled in a banana leaf and served with sticky rice. Even the local beer - Larou as it's hilariously named, is O.K. At 30p a go, it is anyhoo (budget dictates not allowed Tiger - very expensive at 50p a bottle). So our evening meal usually costs around a fiver with beer. It's actually surprisingly difficult to stick to our 12 pound a day budget (especially with all the touting going on) and something which I need more practice at. Still, I've got all that birthday money to spend...

Have both burnt a bit in the sun - we just weren't expecting it! Poor Andy has developed chicken neck and can be seen for miles. This bloke even came up to him on the beach and pointed out how red it was. Very thoughtful of him! We may venture to Marble Mountain tomorrow...This is the first place in 'Nam we've not felt like moving on from.

Hue (Not Lewis)

For the last four days we've been exploring Hue (pronounced Hweigh). Actually for two of those days we explored the lovely delights of Sam's 4 star birthday hotel 'La Residence', so for two days we had a small look around Hue. As I'm sure you can see from your map of Vietnam, Hue is situated about half way down the coast on the eastern side. It has a population just short of 300,000 and is by all accounts the cultural heart of Vietnam. There is a massive river running through the middle of Hue called the Perfume river which is like all Nam rivers we've seen so far, brown. And, no, it didn't particularly smell one way or the other. Across the river from our hotel is where the citadel is located and this is the primary tourist attraction. It was built in 1804 for Emperor Gia Long, however it looks like it was built in 1004 by the state of the place. Various wars and alot of neglect over the years have taken their toll on this place, but it looks like the vietnamese are now doing their best to sort it out a bit. It's about 10k square, so quite a bit of it to walk around and there were some very nice bits of it to look at. Lots of temples (have got temple fatigue quite badly now), a nice moat, some plesant ponds with the usual asortment of ropey fish in and best of all, a couple of real elephants. They were there to give tourists rides, but they looked happy enough, well fed and it was nice to see them.
It was very peaceful in the citadel and we spent quite a while in there, if nothing else, it was time away from the constant cries of 'Hello cyclo' and 'Hello motorbike' that pursued us around the outside of the citadel. Our hotel in Hue was very good. Very clean, satelite, fridge, ac, all for only 2.70 each :) At our other hotel, the posh one (50 quid a night), we literally laid about on our Queen sized bed with metre squared sized pillows and watched trash films and the odd bit of footy :) Played pool, read the papers with our 007 cocktails and had 2 hot, full, baths a day.
On our last day in Hue, we spent the morning lying in and then moving between hotels and in the afternoon we got ourselves some drivers and sped off on mopeds to see a couple of pagodas and a tomb. The tomb belonged to Emperor Tu Doc who died in 1883 and is a collection of tombs and yes, temples, situated amongst a very lovely forest. There was a nice river and lake, not too many tourists and it made for a very relaxing walk. The pagodas were good to, one especially was set in a wood and there were alot of very happy looking monks about, alot of them were playing football actually and I did start to wonder whether we'd strolled in to a young offenders camp at one point. The best bit of that afternoon for me though, was riding around on the back of a moped. No hastle from anyone and you felt part of things, cause, well, everyone else is on a moped.
I think you're meant to go for a boat cruise in Hue, but for one reason or another, we didn't get round to it and Lucy, on your recommendation, we did go to the market and it was fairly rubbish :) Picture the scene. The market is on the banks of the river, 2 floors of the biggest load of crap you've ever seen. As you walk past each 'shop' (shop read cupboard), you gawp in at what is basically the worst stuff you've ever seen for sale in a Pound shop. Then if you imagine that stuff and take it back to the 80's and spray everthing with odeur de fish and then in each tiny hovel of a shop put a crone who's only English is 'Buy me', you're getting close to the horror of Hue market. Thats the inside of the market to, the outside it slightly worse as you have to contend with alot of mud, cyclo's and worse smells!
Today we took the bus to Hoi An. Its about 140k south of Hue and is easily the nicest place we've been in Vietnam :) Even the the sun decided to come out today and we saw some blue sky which we've not seen for about 2 weeks. Whoohoo!! Hoi An blog to follow soon.