Insert Famous Vietnam-based Robin Williams Quote Here

We're sorry, but we have to say it:

Good morning, Vietnam!

We're always scared first time we use a visa. Everything's been approved, but what if we've forgotten to do something somehow, or the policies have changed or they just plain don't like the look of us?

Going through border control is never a stress-free experience anyway. You do your best to try and look innocent, regardless of the fact that you are innocent, thus making you look and feel guilty. The smug security personnel that enjoy asking you questions just to make you sweat and induce a mild sense of guilt never help either. They know what they're doing and they love it.

This is all a red herring though as we passed through into the arrivals gate of Ho Chi Minh City Airport with no issues whatsoever. To get into the centre of what was formerly known a Saigon, we caught a local bus. This involved our first transaction using the Vietnamese Dong (teehee) and immediately caused confusion. Sat on the bus with our backpacks on the floor, the driver asked us for D16,000. This was D8,000 more than we were expecting and we refused to pay and left the bus. It was only when we were back on the pavement that we stopped and did the maths: with £1 equivalent to D32,847, we had walked away over a matter of 25p.

In our defence though, with such an obscure number and five figures to the pound, converting the currency back wasn't the easiest task in the world and was obviously going take a bit of getting used to. Plus, when we got on the next bus, we were only charged D8,000, so we won out in the end (and were 25p richer).

Off the bus, we wandered around HCMC's equivalent of Kho Shan Road, Pham Ngu Lao, and eventually found Mai Pai Hotel, where we spent two nights. It was around 8pm by the time we'd dumped our bags down and freshened up, so we hit the streets in search of food. In a small restaurant surrounded by locals, we got our first taste of Pho Bo - a tasty noodle soup with greens and beef. Richard arrogantly piled in the chillies, only to pick them out minutes later whilst trying to douse the fire in his mouth with a Saigon beer. Nonetheless, the meal went down really well, as did the price. D114,000 for two big meals and two large beers, or a little less than £3.50.

We spent our only full day in HCMC visiting the War Remnants Museum, which catalogued and presented Vietnams involvement in the Vietnam War. We like to walk as much as possible, partly because we're tight-fisted travellers, but mostly because you're able to take in and notice a far greater amount of your surroundings when you're wandering past it than you would if you're flying past it in a taxi.

We stepped onto the streets of HCMC heeding the warnings we'd received from others who'd visited Vietnam about the traffic. The roads are full of mopeds. In fact, we've never seen so many in one place and hundreds of these little two-wheelers buzzing past you, coupled with the cars, made crossing the road a potentially daunting prospect. Thankfully, Indian traffic, a law unto itself and rarely following any sort of uniformity, had adequately prepared us for walls of honking vehicles and we were able to walk into the traffic with a fair amount of confidence that it would part around us. 

The many mopeds of HCMC

Back to the War Remnants Museum, only briefly before we take another quick detour, we managed to turn up just as the gates were closing for lunch. Somewhat naively, we assumed such a prestigious museum would be open all day and so we were left with an hour or so to burn. We wound up in a cafe, which had free wifi (abundant across SE Asia it would seem), glasses of free iced Jasmine tea, which were topped up non-stop, and incredible iced Vietnamese coffee.

Vietnamese coffee deserves a write-up of its own on account of its utter brilliance, but we'll make do with a paragraph. Served in a small tumbler glass, the shot of the dark, thick coffee is so strong it almost tastes alcoholic. It's great on its own, served on a couple of cubes of ice, but most Vietnamese opt for the sweeter version, which adds a dollop of condensed milk. It. Is. Glorious. 

This was outrageously addictive

Second time lucky, we entered the War Remnants Museum, passing countless tanks and helicopters from the war as we made or way up the stairs and through the entrance. The museum was fantastic and incredibly insightful, especially given our levels of ignorance on the subject. It was, however, insanely biased and bordered on propaganda. Our levels of knowledge on the Vietnam War are still far from expert. We are also very aware of how controversial an invasion Vietnam was and we are not for a moment suggesting America were in the right. However, we know enough to be sceptical of the fact that the portrayed attitude of "we were just doing our thing and minding our own business until the Americans showed up and started kicking up a shit storm" doesn't tell the entire story. A couple of other interesting points we picked up along the way were the fact that, in Vietnam, they refer to the conflict as the American War and that America's controversial decision did France a pretty big favour.

Front of the War Remnant's Museum

All of this said, there were parts of the museum that couldn't be tainted by bias. The first of these was the Requiem Exhibition, a collection of photographs taken by war photographers from around the world and compiled by Tim Page, a frontline war photographer himself The images displayed around the room, portraying scenes of extreme violence, burning villages and death, didn't require any accompanying text. Likewise, the section of museum devoted to the after effects of the chemical used to wipe out forests and pollute water supplies in order to chase out and expose guerilla militants, Agent Orange, was also heavily image dependent. Tens of photos showing children and adults alike, all of whom are later generations of those that fought on both sides during the war, that have suffered birth defects as a result of the chemical. Some of the photos were pretty harrowing. 

One of the many anti-war posters

We came away with our ignorance fully exposed, which was actually quite refreshing. It's outrageous to think that such an enormous event took place in recent history and that, probably in part because we weren't directly involved, it doesn't really fall as heavily under our radar.

The remainder of our time in Ho Chi Minh City was spent traipsing around Chumpon as we tried to find some temples that were supposedly ten minutes from the bus station. We eventually found them three hours later, but were so wet from the starting-and-stopping rain and miserable from being lost for so long. As a result, we probably didn't appreciate them as much as we could have, but they were still nice places to escape the wetness. 

Inside one of the elusive temples

Our mode of transport from the bottom of Vietnam to its top was a sleeper coach, which we booked through a company called Sinh Tourist. For £22 each, we bought a ticket that allowed us to get a coach from HCMC all the way up to Hanoi. This was 1,657km away and literally took us from one end of the country to the other, with stops in Nha Trang, Hoi An and Hue on the way. The ticket included three overnight journeys and one day journey on a sleeper bus where you essentially had a small bunk for the night. All we had to do was book onto the coach the day before it was due to leave. Admittedly it wasn't the best nights sleep we've ever had, but it was amazing (and insanely cheap) nonetheless. What's more, after our rather unfortunate experience with the coach company in Surat Thani, this was incredibly simple. 

On the (overnight) buses

We arrived into Nha Trang early the following morning and as we pulled in we discovered that Vietnam gets up very early. As we drove past the beachfront at 5:45am, we gawked at the countless numbers of locals sitting around and chatting, walking and playing badminton. On arrival, we checked straight in to Backpackers House. After enjoying Spicythai so much, we wanted to spend a few more nights in a dorm. We checked in, giving our details to a receptionist who refused to reveal even a hint of a smile, but decided that because it was still so early we would do the courteous thing and wait a few hours before we went and made noise in the dorm. We therefore went for a spot of Pho Bo and cold coffee in the attached Red Apple Restaurant. The following morning, we discovered that we're obviously far too British. Those that had come in on the early coach had chosen to come straight up into the dorm, meaning we were woken up at 7am by an Australian guy talking far too loudly about happy endings. The place was also right above a club, which meant an overall lack of sleep, even after a few cocktails at the Green Apple Club. Maybe we're getting old.

Nha Trang's Beach

Partly because of the above and partly because the crowd of people at the Hostel were pretty boring (particularly two girls that walked around with faces like slapped arses the entire time - more on them later), we decided to move to a private room at Phu Quy, which actually turned out to be cheaper and so we were more than happy.

Nha Trang is somewhat renowned for its partying and its beach, but we weren't actively seeking big nights out and so we gave the towns reputation a knowing hat tip with a few beers and some cocktails instead. Our favourite watering hole, and what quickly became our local for the few days we stuck around, was Louisiane Brewhouse, a bar which had its own pool, whipped up cute little cakes and poured amazing microbrewed beers made on site. The passion fruit beer was particularly delicious. The pool made a nice change from the beach, as the sea wasn't really enjoyable to be in on account of the beach being on a slope. This meant the waves would collapse in on themselves and have you constantly trying to regain your balance.  

Not the only Passionfruit Beer Richard had

We also found some lovely places to eat. La Veranda was a little restaurant with wifi that served tasty, high-end-style food and amazing iced coffee for miniscule amounts. Whilst La Veranda was our lunchtime haunt, Lanterns was where it was at for dinner. With profits supporting a local orphanage, we were able to chow down with a conscience on seafood hotpot and chicken in a coconut, both of which were superb.

It's not all cocktails and cuisine in Nha Trang. It has quite a bad reputation for petit crime, with bag snatching and muggings ranking amongst the most common. With drunken travellers stumbling the streets late at night, it must be like shooting fish in a barrel and, thankfully, we didn't witness and were not party to any of this. However, we did witness something far worse. At around 2pm, as we were lying on the beach, a scuffle broke out next to a children's playground amongst a group of local men. We looked on and it began to escalate quickly, with arms and legs swinging aggressively and more people becoming involved. It all culminated in three men riding away on a motorbike, the man in the middle sandwiched between the drover and the passenger as we limply swayed from side to side. In all the commotion, he'd been stabbed - over what, we still don't know. We continued to watch as everyone involved scattered in various directions and the police casually arrived and did next to nothing. We were told the stab wound wasn't fatal, but the blood on the pavement was more than a few drops.

We should stress that this is a rarity and you shouldn't let this put you off visiting Nha Trang. It's a great place and well worth a stop on your way up the Vietnamese coast.

Our next stop, Hoi An, quickly turned into our favourite place in Vietnam. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city used to be a trading port back in the 17th Century. Thanks to its UNESCO status, the it has changed very little in the last one hundred and fifty years, with its Chinese, Japanese and European influences still there to be seen in abundance. The city was absolutely beautiful, its streets lined with old yellow buildings, many of which were covered in climbing pink flowers, and it was lit up at night by hundreds of lanterns. A river ran through of the the centre of the city and here you could go and light candles in lotus flowers for good luck as you walked along its banks after dinner, listening to he classical music that played over the city-wide PA system. 

Hoi An's bridge by night

Wandering the streets of Hoi An

We stayed in Hoi An for four nights, although we could have happily doubled this, at Nhi Trung Hotel. The hotel was probably the best we stayed in in Vietnam and was up there in one f the best places we've stayed since starting or travels back in February. For less than £10 a night, we had a comfortable, quiet room with air-conditioning, satellite TV and free wifi. Whats more, hotel staff came into our room every day not only to clean and make the bed, but to give us fresh towels, toilet roll and toiletries! This is highly unusual in budget accommodation. In most cases, we're lucky to get a couple of towels and half a roll of loo paper, so imagine or excitement when we were give fresh soaps, toothbrushes and a comb each day. How decadent.

Hoi An is not only famous for its lanterns. It's also infamous for its tailored suits. There were literally hundreds of tailors lining Hoi An's streets and everyone wanted you to come into their shop for a look. As our hotel had an affiliation with a tailor, T&C, we decided to go and have a chat to them about what we were after. They turned out to be very professional, meaning we didn't have to traipse around countless tailors, and for £150 Ashley had a suit skirt and jacket, as well as a suit dress made, whilst Richard went for four shirts. 

Lanterns, lanterns everywhere...

We were measured at 4pm on the day that we arrived, choosing our materials and fabrics. At the same time the following day, the 'first draft' of our clothes were already ready to be tried on. We tried them all on and were drawn all over in chalk as try established where things needed to be taken in and out. On the third and fourth days, Ashley had two more fittings just to make sure her suit was perfect an it was. We were both incredibly happy, especially Ashley, who even got to pick the lining of her suit and dress - a pretty, flowery silk.

As a UNESCO site, Hoi An contains some incredible, well preserved buildings. We spent a day wandering around these sites using the 'Hoi An Old Town Pass', which allowed us to pick five sites to visit out of nearly twenty. First was the four hundred and eighteen year old Japanese covered bridge, which contained a small temple and was guarded stone by dogs on one end and monkeys on the other (because its construction began in the year of the dog and ended in the year of the monkey). We also took a look around the Assembly hall of the Fijian Chinese Congregation, a meeting hall-cum-temple, and Phung Hung Old House, a exquisitely and ornately decorated building. We finished the afternoon off with a cultural performance at the Museum of Trading Ceramics, where we watched men and women dance, sing and slap bass. 

"Slappa da bass BIG TIME!"

With its reputation for local specialities, eating in Hoi An was a constant treat. There were fried Hoanh Thanh (wontons), White Rose (prawns in steamed rice paper), Banh Xeo (crispy savoury pancakes filled with herbs) and, our hands down favourite dish of Vietnam, Cao Lau (thick, flat, doughy noodles in broth served with Vietnamese-style croutons, bean sprouts, greens and slice pork. The latter was unbelievably good and we ate it at least once a day.

We ate far too much Cao Lau

With such a diverse and special menu, this was the place to do a cooking course and so we spent a day at Red Bridge Cooking School. We were taken to an organic herb and vegetable farm where we picked up many of the days ingredients, as well as enjoying a cold and refreshing lemon-basil seed drink, before picking up the rest of our ingredients from a busy local market. From there, we were driven to the school and were given our own private lesson for the day as we learned to cook Pho Bo, marinated, barbecued prawns (one to be repeated in the summer - incredible), clay-pot fish and banana flower salad (fantastically fresh and zingy). As always, we were able to eat everything we made, taking as much Beer La Rue as we fancied for no extra cost and finished our day off with a swim in the pool. Full, we thanked our chef and were taken back to the main area of Hoi An along the river in a boat - a perfect end to an excellent day.

Watering the herbs and vegetables

At the market

Ashley whipping up some claypot fish

One of our favourite dishes of the day: banana flower salad

As if all of this wasn't enough to keep us busy, we also hired a bicycle for the day (60p per bike) to visit Cua Dai Beach. The cycle was flat and relatively easy, if you discount the road works we had to work our way around, and the stretch of beach it led to was beautiful, with deck chairs under thatched palm shelters and a calm sea for cooling off in. It was without doubt much nicer than the each in Nha Trang. On the way back to the hotel, we indulged in one of our now regular habits/pastimes - cafe visiting. Dingo's was run by a couple of Australian expats and served up delicious slices of cake (the lemon tort was particularly delectable). With our now international knowledge of cafe's, if all falls through on the job front, cafe critiques could present itself as a serious and very probable career path.

Cua Dai Beach

Cycling home (check out the basket)

An early, four hour bus moved us on to Hue, where we had much better luck with a Backpackers Hostel. Hue Backpackers was a friendly, Australian run place that had it completely right. Clean dorms, clean bathrooms, a social area upstairs and a bar and restaurant downstairs. Dave, the manager, was always around, seemingly propping up the bar a lot of the time, especially between 5 and 6pm when it was two for one beers - two for D20,000 (60p). Richard got chatting to him one evening and, between the free Snickers and rice wine vinegar shots he was dishing out, Richard asked him a few questions about the hostel. Apparently they are almost always operating at 80% occupancy, where as most other places operate around 30%. As a result, a lot of the local hostel owners didn't like Dave. He'd even received death threats. 

We only spent a couple of nights in Hue, but managed to squeeze in a day on a moped, riding to the Tomb of Tu Duc and the Tomb of Minh Mang. Whilst Tu Duc's tomb was relatively easy to find, we spent the rest of the day looking for the second. Both tomb's were very impressive, more for the grounds than anything else. Tu Duc's tomb was set along a small lake and surrounded by pine trees and Minh Mang's was hidden behind series of walls and bridges each intricately and individually designed. They were both peaceful places to spend the day quietly and slowly walking under the intensely hot sun. 

Pagoda where the King's concubines would hang out

The bridge to the Tomb of Minh Mang

A small shrine and its offerings

We also spent a day on the other side of the river at the Citadel. Whilst not quite as impressive as the tomb's due to the fact that it was bombed intensely by the American's during the war, the Citadel is still an impressive series of buildings, many of which have been or are being renovated or rebuilt from scratch where they once existed. 

Inside the crumbling Citadel

Our last official stop on the Sinh Tourist route was Vietnam's capital, Hanoi. With the same hustle and bustle as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi is a amalgamation of small windy French-style streets filled with fantastic little boutique shops, tourist toot and restaurant. It has has some great street food on offer. On our first night, we passed a restaurant filled with locals, all of whom were sitting on the outdoor plastic chairs you buy for children - the only kind of street food stall seat available in Vietnam - and tucking into a good-looking hot plate. We decided this was the place for dinner and, with a metal plate on top of a flame, we cooked the enormous plate of marinated raw beef, onion, peppers and tomato we were served. It was delicious, made even more so by the restaurants unexpectedness.

This was glorious

Hue backpackers was part of a small group of hostels, with the headquarters being in Hanoi. Having enjoyed our stay in Hue, we went to the Hanoi arm where we stayed for a night and booked onto the three day, two night tour of Halong Bay.

The tour started early the following morning with roll call and distribution of brightly coloured sombrero's at 8am. Richard's wake up wasn't ideal. Our room mates had come in pretty late the night before and had made a considerable amount of noise, drunkenly 'whispering'. Bleary eyed, Richard rolled over in the morning to see the guy on the adjacent bunk asleep with his back to him, duvet off and trousers half way down towards his knees with his hairy arse pointing straight at him. It was not the most ideal way of starting the day.

We were herded onto two mini buses for the four hour drive from Hanoi to Halong City. On the drive we were sat next to Alice and Marius. Alice was from the UK, had been travelling for four months around Africa and South East Asia and was heading to University in September. Marius was from Germany. He had been travelling for eleven months, eight of which were spent in Australia and the rest of which he'd used to explore South East Asia. Whilst a nice guy, he was a bit of an odd one. More on that in due course.

We stopped for a break at a pottery shop, which no one was interested in looking around. In fact, they probably made more money from selling Pringles and pop than they did on the overpriced jewellery and over-sized ornaments. Anyway, we were supposed to stop for fifteen minutes to give us time to feed, water and drain ourselves. We were starting to get a little restless when forty minutes later, when we had all crowded outside the bus waiting to carry on with the journey and yet to moved. Eventually, Andy, our crew member, informed us that there was a problem with the boat we were supposed to be boarding and spending the night on. In fact, there was a problem with all the boats. Every single boat driver on the bay had chosen to go on strike, meaning we couldn't get out on it. Initially, we thought he was pulling our leg, but we quickly had to make a decision on whether to carry on to Halong City to see what the situation was when we arrived or to turn around and head back to Hanoi.

We all deiced to at least head as far as Halong City and see if the situation would improve in the couple of hours we spent getting there. When we arrived, nothing had changed and so, over lunch, we had to make the decision on whether we wanted to head back to the hostel and get a full refund or go ahead with the alternative plans the crew were making. With no time to do this again, Ashley and I decided to go for it, as did quite a few others To be honest, we still had a great group, we just lost a lot of the more boring types who were putting a dampener on the day already (including the two -faces-like-slapped-arses girls from Nha Trang). We had a some lunch, which Marius made rather uncomfortable by waving several king prawns, complete with black beady-eyes, whiskers and heads, in the face of his vegetarian neighbour. He also ate half (as in one full side - a whole fillet!) of some delicious fish that was meant to be able to go round a table of ten people. Richard was not best pleased.

The new plan for the day was to get a ferry, which was the only boat still operating, to Halong Bay's largest island - Cat Bha. Here, we visited a beach that was full of Vietnamese and which, apparently, no Westerners had ever been to before. Feeling privileged, we all enjoyed a well-deserved beer, a dip in the sea and a Vietnam vs Rest of the World football match (the last one was just the guys). We were then bussed to our alternative accommodation for the night and we have to say that we kind of lucked out! We arrived just after nightfall at what was clearly a very nice resort, with beautiful rooms and in the middle of nowhere. Granted, we had to share with a few other people on account of there being a lot of us, but it was still pretty swanky. We felt a little bad when we all gathered in the bar area and saw a middle-aged couple, clearly on a romantic and private getaway, wandering through the courtyard. You saw their faces drop when they saw that thirty or so backpackers had come to destroy any hopes they harboured of an isolated evening on an island.

On our way...

...to Cat Bha island

During our tasty dinner, we sat next to our new source of entertainment (for all the wrong reasons), Marius, who once again came out with a question that was awkward, entertaining and ominous in equal measure. As he got to know the girl opposite him, Dominica, it came up that one of her parents were Israeli.

"Are you Jewish?", ventured Marius suddenly.

"Yes, on my Mum's side", she repiled. At this point, Marius raised his finger and wagged it in her face and said (read this in your best German accent):

"Don't come to Geerrrrmannnnyyyyy".

We all broke out laughing, but what an outrageous opening gambit.

After dinner,  the drinks quickly started to pour and the subsequent drinking games ensued. Split into two teams, us on Team Ghost Panther with a few people we'd met along the way (Lucy from the UK and Domenica and Fran from Australia), Ring of Fire began. Once we realised the cost benefits of buying and splitting a litre of vodka rather than continually buying doubles, things really took off and the night got pretty hazy from there on in. Moments of clarity still arise: unbelievable amounts of lunging, Richard getting behind the bar several times, Richard trying to get onto the bar, the two of us swapping clothes, excessive levels of dancing and Ashley biting someones nose (part of the drinking game and not a random attack).

The following morning we, Richard in particular, were reminded why we hadn't been drunk for the last few months. His head was throbbing, he struggled to see, his stomach was somersaulting and the sun was already beating down intensely at 8am. This was all intensified as we got onto a boat to takes us the Hostels very own, private island: Castaway Island.

The largest floating village in Halong Bay

Richard feeling a little worse for wear

We arrived on Castaway Island

And this is what we had at our disposal

As we worked our way through Halong Bay, past the floating fishing villages and infinite number of limestone islands (three thousand in total), we marveled at its magnificence. How did this place ever come to be? After about forty minutes to an hour on the boat, we pulled into Castaway Island, a beautiful and secluded little cove in the middle of Halong Bay where we spent the next twenty-four hours. The first thing we, and pretty much everyone else, did was get in the sea to cool off. Our day in paradise started as it meant to go on and we switched between the sea and the sand, mixing in some wakeboarding in the bay (Richard stood up and Ashley was really close) and exploring the neighbouring islands in a kayak. Needless to say, this was a real highlight of Vietnam.

Richard made it up a couple of times

Ashley came oh-so close

 After a day in the sun and some dinner, the drinking games began in earnest once again. First up was Roxanne. This amazing Police track began to play and each time Sting sang "Rooooooxanne", the girls would take a drink. Each time he crooned "put on your red light", the guys would have to take a drink. With Beer Ha Noi as our drink of choice, we finished the warm-up bloated and feeling slightly abused. Next was Roxanne's bigger and meaner older brother: Queen's 'Bicycle Race'. Each time Freddy Mercury ventured the words "bicycle", we were treated to another glug from our can. If you're not familiar with the song, or if you haven't heard it in a while, he says the word bicycle a hell of a lot. The evening stared to descend into messiness and, whilst involving ourselves, we sensibly chose to take a backseat.

Throughout the night, there was an ongoing game taking place called 'Buffalo'. It was, at least in theory, a simple game in which you could only drink with your left hand. If you were caught drinking with your right hand, someone would shout "Buffalo" and you would have to finish whatever it was that you'd chosen to drink. No one really took this game that seriously as it was pretty annoying having to finish, say, a full can of beer. No one, that is, except for Marius. Throughout the night, as people innocently sipped at there drinks, he would be watching everyone around the table like a half. Every so often, a German-infused voice would break the festivities and you were hear (again, read in your best German accent):

"Buuuffffffalllooooooooooo".

He really was quite a character.

At around 1am, Ashley and I went for a dip in the sea and, as we swam around in the water, our moving limbs were surrounded by what looked like tiny LED's. The water was filled with phosphorescent algae and watching it was incredible. It was a prefect way to finish our few days in Halong Bay and, with that, we headed back to our mattress, which was with about ten others and underneath a thatched roof with open sides, each bed surrounded by a mosquito net. It was rather idyllic.

The next day was spent travelling back to the hostel, where we stayed one more night and went out for an superb dinner. Quan An Ngon served up street food-style food, but in a setting suitable for the Viatnemese middle classes. Set in a well-lit, busy outdoor 'garden', we tucked into a beautiful seafood hotpot for two. A fitting, although it turns out rather premature, 'last meal'.

The following morning, we caught an airport bus to take us the one hour drive to Hanoi airport where we'd fly on back to Singapore and then on to Delhi. Almost robitically, we handed our passports over to the airline representative who spent a little longer than normal tapping away at her computer's keyboard. We weren't that phased as, on all of the tickets we have booked, Ashley's surname is spelled incorrectly so there can sometimes be a bit of mild confusion. Ater a couple of minutes, she asked to see our e-tickets and, once we handed them over, we were told what the issue was: we were a day early. 

Ah. We quickly put a positive spin on what was a bit of a pain in the backside - at least we were a day early rather than a day late. We could just come back tomorrow and try again. It was actually a bit of a blessing in disguise as, after the Halong Bay tour, we were pretty exhausted and a night in a mixed dorm hadn't provided us with the best amount of sleep. 

We booked into a private room in a different part of Hanoi, which had a far more obvious French influence and was probably a nicer area than where we had been before, and had the opportunity to wander round this as yet unexplored area. 

Hanoi's St Joseph's Cathedral

Second time lucky, we got our flight to Delhi the following day., where the final chapter of our travels would begin...

"Ping Pong Show?"

The three key phrases you should arm yourself with before arriving on Bangkok's Koh San Road are: "No, I do not require a tuk tuk", "No, I am not in need of a suit" and "No, I would not like to see a ping pong show". With regard to the latter, the touts don't actually ask the ping pong question using words. Instead, they purse the lips together tightly until they're forced apart, creating a sound somewhere between popping and sucking.

So, this was Bangkok. We hopped off the bus and into the surreal world of Ko Sahn Road in the early afternoon, wandering around looking for a place to stay and, for the first night at least, we found it in Khao San Palace Inn just off Ko Sahn Road. With clean bedding, satellite TV and an air conditioner blowing out sweet, cold air, it was perfect and, showered and organised we ventured outside for a look around.

One of KSR's more unusual bars

In the afternoon and into the early evening, Ko Sahn Road does a roaring trade in tourist toot, pirate DVDs and CDs, vests adorned with the brand image of several local beers, knock off clothing and off-the-back-of-a-lorry-goods. We say trade roars into the early evening, but given the fact that when the sun goes down the road side bars pop up to offer "ice cold beer" and "bargain cocktail buckets", we'd imagine there's a direct correlation between levels of alcohol consumed and sales (not to mention profit margins from the reduced ability to haggle) on the road. Picking out some stuff we'd be coming back for once we'd had a good nights sleep and re-oiled our now rusting bartering skills, we sat ourselves down to our first Beer Chang. This was followed by our first Thai meal: a Chicken Pad Thai and Green Coconut Curry from Mr Yim's street food stall. The food across Thailand was and is incredible, generally safe - we had no problems and had meat with every meal - and outrageously cheap. That meal cost us less than £2. Later, we parked ourselves next to a lone Asian tourist sipping from a cocktail bucket for a couple more Chang's on Ko San Road itself, watching the utter craziness unfold: the guys who went too hard too soon, the lairy lads on tour and the prostitutes and lady-boys circling the tables of those that look just about drunk enough to say yes.

This one's self-explanatory

As we needed to get our visas for Vietnam, we had to stick around in Bangkok for a few days whilst we waited for the appropriate boxes to be ticked and stamps to be thumped, but we did a good job of filling our time. Having dropped our passports off at the Vietnamese embassy, we walked to what is meant to be an infamous mall of knock-offs, MBK (shaking off the touts that were telling us it was closed), but upon arrival we were pretty underwhelmed. We weren't hungrily seeking fake Rolex's and Louis Vuitton bags, but we were interested to at least take a peak and, overall, it was a poor show: bad Paul Smith fakes (imagine Richard's disdain - a fake Paul Smith. The audacity!), okay looking bags, Lacoste and Ralph Lauren polos...That said, Ashley came away with two 'Ralph Lauren' work shirts. Overall though it was distinctly average.

The real treat was a two minute walk from MBK, where, housed on two narrow lanes, were lines of small stalls run by local designers that produced amazing t-shirts and other clothing, as well as some excellent jewellery - it was like a Thai Urban Outfitters.

Speaking of shopping, each weekend in Chatuchak, a 30 minute journey on Bangkok's super-modern, air conditioned metro system, the world class Chatuchak Market takes place. 'World Class' isn't an accolade we've placed upon it - it consists of ten thousand stalls and is *the largest market in the world. We can vouch for that as we spent six or seven relentless hours delving into and finding our way out of this rabbit warren and didn't even come close to covering it all.

At Chatuchak, you can find everything you could possibly need. What is it you're after? Spices? Food? Fruit and veg? Fakes (T-shirts? Jewellery? Watches? Sunglasses? Bags?)? Electronics? Tableware? Tourist trinkets? Furniture (if so, indoor or out)? Snakes? There's a stall for that. There's even a large area dedicated once again to local designers who were flogging some awesome designs for outrageous prices. This bit was Portobello-esque.

 

Chatuchak street food: some of the best Pad Thai we had in Thailand

So, when we say we were able to amuse ourselves, we did so consuming. We took in some of the cultural sights too though. A short walk from Ko Sahn Road was Bangkok's Grand Palace, a large, gawdy, indulgent palace covered in gold, mirrored and brightly coloured tiles to create enormous mosaics. Before we entered the Palace, we had to cover our Western knees and shoulders with various items of stock clothing. We'd come a little unprepared as it was a palace and not a place of worship, so we didn't think anyone would be 'watching'. Not so, apparently.

A small part of the Grand Palace

Ashley modelling the sexy clothes

Inside the Grand Palace

After the Grand Palace we walked to Wat Pho, the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok famed for it's giant reclining Buddha - the biggest in Thailand. In our travels thus far we have seen alot of Buddhas, be they reclining, seated or standing. We know it sounds ridiculous, and when we heard people use the phrase 'templed-' or 'Buddha'd-out' before we left, we just thought they were being ungrateful, but it does happen. So, when we heard about this Buddha, we didn't expect too much as we'd already seen a lot of impressive ones.

However, at forty six metres long and eighteen metres high, this Buddha was enormous and he just lay on his side, chilling out. We walked around with our mouths open trying to take it all in. The figure itself was made of plaster covered in gold leaf and in the eyes and on the soles of his ginormous feet were mother of pearl inlays. We were beyond impressed and clearly yet to be Buddha'd out.

We also found a beautiful little cafe just ten minutes from Kho Sahn called Niras Bankoc where they made an excellent iced tea and a tasty green tea mousse cake. It was totally worth the walk. Plus, they looked as though they had some cosy, reasonably priced rooms if you wanted to be away from, but close enough to, the craziness.

In Thailand, they love their King. His image is everywhere

On the streets of Bangkok: a group of monks making for a taxi

Speaking of rooms, after a good nights sleep and a day back on Asian prices, we concluded that our first night in Bangkok was rather expensive and so decoded to pack our bags and move to the cheaper and infinitely inferior New My Guest House just around the corner. The room was the epitome of a sweatbox but, for half the price, we thought it was worth the move. It wasn't until the next morning, when we woke up at 10am thinking it was still the middle of the night, that we realised just how much of a hole it was. With no windows, there was no natural light and so you awoke in complete darkness no matter the time of day. Hole with a capital H.

61 floors up: we visited Vertigo Rofftop Bar for an evening cocktail

Vietnamese visas in our passports (which are becoming incredibly exciting to flick through - stamps everywhere!), we headed north on an overnight train to Chiang Mai. Overall, there was little difference to the countless overnight trains we became oh-so familiar with in India, but with one exception. At about nine o'clock, a train employee whizzed through the carriage with your bedding and made your bed up at lightning speed. We half expected him to tuck us in.

We'd been recommended a place to stay by one of the guys we met in Hampi and, always keen to have a recommendation, we spent the next five nights at Spicythai Backpackers. Run by Pong, a Thai guy that had travelled though Europe extensively, he knew what he liked in a place and just created that in Chiang Mai. It was nothing fancy, it just did what it did incredibly well. The dorm rooms were clean and air conditioned, the shared bathrooms spotless, there was a decent breakfast included, a social area full of cushions and sofas where you could sit and choose from hundreds of films and TV programmes and watch them on the huge TV in the evenings and they had free wifi. What really made the stay though was the friendliness and helpfulness when it came to booking things, finding your way around and, above all, the nightly activities that were organised.

For instance, on our first night we were taken to Wat Suan Dok, a nearby temple. We had happened to have turned up on one of the holiest days in the Buddist calendar, Wisakhabucha, the day that Lord Buddha was born, reached enlightenment and died (across a few decades, he didn't just have a busy day). Here, we were given a lesson in Buddhism before being invited into the temple to sit and watch an hour of what had been a day-long sermon before we followed the procession of orange-robed monks outside. As we circled an enormous golden stupa (we say we but Ashley, as a female, couldn't walk directly behind the monks and so followed about ten minutes behind with the other ladies), the monks and the Thai's around us chanted. We did this three times, as with the Fountain of Wealth in Singapore, before going to light some incense and lay down a waterlily. It was a fascinating experience and one that we wouldn't have been able to participate in otherwise.

Wat Suan Dok

The ceremony

Worshippers offering incense, candles and waterlilies

Even on those nights where there was nothing as exciting going on, Pong was more than happy to take us to a local haunt for dinner, pointing out dishes he liked - always good to eat what the locals eat - and getting few beers in (ice cubes optional).

Casual beers with Pong

Chiang Mai was a wonderful, laid back place where you could have quite easily spent your time doing very little, but there was a hell a lot to do as well. Fighting the temptation to just loll about in the old town enjoying the bars and cafes created to serve the University city, we signed ourselves up to do a couple of things. The first was a cooking course.

After a visit to the market to buy our ingredients, we spent the day whipping up various Thai favourites, including Chicken Satay, Thom Yum Soup, Pad Thai and Green Curry. We even covered dessert, Ashley making a steamed banana pudding and Richard choosing to cook sweet sticky rice with mango. Having honed our Sri Lankan and Indian cooking skills, we can now add Thai to the repertoire. There were a couple of Amish girls in the class with us that were staying with a Christian family in the city, which made it that little bit more interesting. Unsurprisingly, they didn't say much, but their long, potentially homemade dresses and bonnets reflected their conservative attitudes.

AKA Century Eggs. These were on offer at the market. We gave them a miss

Ashley adopts her best concentration face whilst making Pad Thai

One of several dishes; Chicken Satay

The following morning, we were picked up by a sawngthaew, which translates as 'two benches', perfectly summarising this 'taxi' that offers the easiest and cheapest way of moving within a town or city. A pick-up truck drives in a particular direction and, if he's going your way, you flag him down, get your price and then join the other passengers in the covered back, which has one bench on each side. Our sawngthaew was taking us for a day of Mahout training, where we would learn to ride elephants bareback. First though, we stopped off at a roadside stall to pick up a big bunch of bananas for our soon-to-be companion. It's always important to make a good impression.

At the elephant park, after the elephants had inhaled the bananas we'd fed them, we got a proper introduction, during which we found out that all of the elephants were previously used by local logging companies to hall trees down and lug them around. Needless to say, the loggers treated them terribly and the life they lead now - being fed, ridden and loved by tourists - is infinitely better.

We spent the morning learning the necessary commands to control an elephant - how to get them to lift their right leg to create a step so you can jump onto it's back (taking a tight hold of the back of their ears), how to tell them you've got sugarcane treats to give them (as if they need a signal to figure that out), how to tell them you've run out and how to drive them forward and backwards and steer them left and right. The most fun command, however, was the one we learnt that caused the elephants front legs to bend, sending it's backside into the air and bringing it's head towards the ground. This was the alternative way of getting on: essentially leap-frogging over the elephant's enormous head, you straddle it's neck, facing the wrong way. Once upright, you then had to rotate so that you were facing the right way. Given his height, this was no problem for Richard, but Ashley's leap-frogging was less successful. On her first attempt, she just slid down the poor elephants face. The instructors therefore thought it would be easier for her to just hold the back of the elephants ears and get carried up.

One of the Mahouts showing off

This was a visual treat. Almost as soon as Ashley had a hold of the ears, the elephant started to get up and all that could be heard was a high-pitched "Oh Jesus!". From the ground, it looked as though she had run, jumped and tried attacking the elephant. The picture really speaks for itself.

Ashley 'attacks' her elephant

Sitting on an elephant for the first time is a strange feeling. On one level, you're excited. You're on an elephant! But there's a level of trepidation as you get used to its big, heavy movements. Once you learn to relax though, it's a great way to 'travel' - like riding a high-up, slightly hairy, tough skinned tractor.

We look like 80's throw-backs, but we had fun

Over lunch, we got chatting Roy, who we'd been watching with interest all morning anyway. He clearly loved animals and was chatting away to the elephants, scratching the backs of their ears and saying "yeah, that feels nice doesn't it darling" using the same voice people talk to their cats or dogs. A big, loud and friendly freelance journalist from LA, he told us how he'd spent the last five months travelling through Southeast Asia covering gigs and festivals for Rolling Stone Asia, which we thought was pretty cool. On his way round, when leaving Malaysia in fact, he contracted Dengue Fever and ended up in hospital. Whilst there, his leg got infected and swelled to double its size, getting to the point where the doctors were talking about amputating it. Not so cool.

Fed, we both hopped onto our elephant, with Ashley on the front and Richard behind. In a four elephant pachyderm, we followed the leader and directed Srisoi, our elephant for the afternoon, down to the river, where we bathed her using the bark from a tree, which, once wet, creates a lather. She sat in the river basking in the attention (and we made sure to get behind her ears).

Before heading back to Spicythai, we were given a certificate for our days mahout training, which we can only assume means that we're now allowed to drive an elephant anywhere in the world.

Eighteen kilometres out of the centre of Chiang Mai was the Doi Suthep temple, which sat at the top of a hill and offered amazing views of the city. Not fancying an epic, uphill trek in flip flops, we decided to hire a moped for the day. For just 250 Baht (£5), we hired a surprisingly modern 125cc motorbike from an incredibly effeminate vendor. On our way up to the temple, we passed Mae Sa waterfalls and thought we'd go and have a look. We found a completely isolated plunge pool with water pouring into it from the waterfall thirty feet above. Richard was determined to go in despite not having brought any of the necessary attire. Down to his boxers and in the refreshingly cool water, he was able to persuade Ashley in too. We tried to stand under the waterfall for a Peter Andre 'Mysterious Girl' photo or two, but as we got closer to the fall, we decided it was so strong it'd probably hammer us into the silt of the plunge pools bed like a nail and so we just posed on the rocks instead.

"Woah-oh, Woah-oh, Woah, Mysterious Girl!"

With no towels, we just sort of shook ourselves off, a la le chien, and used the motorbike as a tumble drier as we continued our ascent to the top of the hill, where we parked up and went inside Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. One of the north's most sacred temples, Doi Suthep was apparently chosen to hold a Buddha relic when an elephant holding the relic wandered to the top of the hill and collapsed and died. The temple is reached by a large staircase embellished with dragon heads and their scales are made of beautifully painted tiles.

The stairs up to Doi Suthep

We also visited Chiang Mai's reputed night market. Building up to our trip to Thailand, there was quite a lot of controversy surrounding the night market. Within the space of two weeks, around ten people had died in the city, a lot of them from Australia and NZ. The age range of the victims ranged from the early twenties to the late forties and, despite the Thai government insisting that there was no connection between the deaths, all had died of heart failure. There were a number of theories flying around and one of the 'favourites' was that it may have been the food at the night market. However, when we left NZ, the cause still hadn't been pinned down.

We went to the night market with two girls we met at the hostel - Bree the Canadian and Marnie the Australian - and, over a plate of Pad Thai, Marnie updated us on the spate of deaths. Thankfully they had nothing to do with the food. It transpired that despite the Thai governments insistence, all of the deaths were very much connected. All of the deaths had occurred inside the same hostel, where, after an outside investigation, the owners had been spraying the bedding in the rooms with insecticide. One of the chemicals possible side effect? Heart failure.

The prices at the night market were pretty inflated, probably due to its popularity and so haggling was hard going. Richard had to approach four or five different stalls before they even started taking his price for a couple of t-shirts seriously. One lady was so so 'insulted' by his opening price, her response was:

"Okay, bye, see you NEVER!"

Richard's attempt of explaining the haggling process - "you give me an outrageously inflated price and I give you a ridiculously low price and we meet somewhere in the middle" - didn't seem to help matters. It was a good market an a nice way to spend and evening though

Flying into Bangkok, slap bang in Thailand's centre, and wanting to visit places in both the north and the south of the country meant there was always going to be one long journey. Chiang Mai to Surat Thani was the one. Having decided on which Thai island we wanted to stay on, Koh Phangan, we booked ourself onto an early morning bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, where we'd get on another bus, this time overnight, to Surat Thani. From there we'd still need to find our way to the port and get a boat over to Koh Phangan.

The views on our way to Koh Phangan

The buses surpassed our expectations. The seats were fairly wide and comfortable and onboard throughout was what we suppose you'd call a bus hostess. Much like an air hostess, she walked from the front of the bus to the back handing out bottles of cold mineral water, cartons of iced green tea and boxes of snacks. We didn't sign up for this special treatment, we just booked a ticket at the bus station. The overnight bus, however, was a little harder to bear. All day, our first bus had been playing terrible Thai pop music, which are all - seemingly without variation - slow, whiny ballads about love. We were able to handle it in the sunlight, but on the overnight bus it seemed as though every time we were just starting to nod off, we were awoken with this monotonous, self-indulgent din. We've heard bad things about Thai prisons and we're not sure if this is a utilised torture method, but if it isn't, they should certainly consider it. It's up there with bamboo shoots under the fingernails.

We rolled into Surat Thani at the less than ideal time of 5am and, after sitting on a bench for a while to come up with a plan, we got into a sawngthaew that took us to the boat and bus booking office.

'Booking office' substantially oversells the place we pulled up in front of. It was literally a dark and dirty hole in the wall, containing a few decapitated chairs and a tired desk. This is where we discovered that the Thai islands, or at least the business of getting to them, suffered from certain levels of collusion. The port was still eighty kilometres away and, as the only viable option of getting there was on a bus provided by this company, it was expensive. They then tried to tie in a bus-boat deal for a 'reduced rate'. Knowing the actual price of the boat, we bought the overpriced bus ticket and saved ourselves 100B (£2) each by turning up and buying the boat ticket ourselves. We (and Richard especially) have become exceptional tight-arses.

Our scepticism of the company turned out to be completely justified as well. We had been told stories about how common it was for your luggage to be tampered with on long bus journeys, a little Thai man sitting in the luggage compartment of the coach and, as the bus rolls along overnight to its destination, he has all the time in the world to rifle trough each bag in turn, taking his sweet time. We were even told that people found other peoples clothes in their luggage, so these thieves weren't desperate to hide what they were up to. Having travelled a good majority of the country, we didn't experience any problems. Then, picking up our bags and getting onto the boat to Koh Phangan, Ashley discovered that the clips on her bag were undone. Someone had tried to get into her bag and pulled her lock so hard that she was unable to open it. Thankfully nothing was taken, but after four days of squeezing her belongs in and out of her bags, she eventually had to ask the hostel owner to cut the lock, which he did using a cleaver and a rock in the space of two minutes.

The outrageous prices continued as we docked in Koh Phangan. To get across to the place we were staying, we had to get in a sawngthaew. We've already explained the normal protocol for using these things, so when we were quoted 100B each for a fifteen minute journey we laughed and moved onto the next driver. After hearing "100B each" several times, we realised that this was the going rate. This meant that, rather than these things running full and economically, they were treated as glorified taxis, carrying two people around instead of ten. It was ridiculous.

Koh Phangan is renowned for its Full Moon Parties, but we'd missed this by a week or two, which meant that the island was wonderfully quiet. We stayed in a lovely little beach-side bungalow right next to Hat Rin Nai, AKA Sunset Beach. With a great restaurant attached and at less than £10 for the two of us, it was a great find. The restaurant/guesthouse also had a small collection of dogs who would join us for our evening beer on the beach each day and, after dinner, follow us back to our hut and sleep on its porch like our very own guard dogs.

Sunset Beach living up to its name

One of our guard dogs coming for some loving

Our hut was also just a short walk from Hat Rin Nol, or Sunrise Beach, where the Full Moon Party normally takes place. Given the fact that every month approximately thirty thousand people gather on the beach to drink buckets of spirits and amphetamines, as well as a lot of other stuff, we assumed two things would be the case here: a) It'll be a big beach; and b) It might be quite dirty.

Neither of those things turned out to be true. The beach was amazingly small and we can't imagine how squashed together everyone must be, especially at the busier parties. You could dawdle from one side of it to the other in fifteen minutes.

It was also seriously well kept. Each day at around 4pm, a tractor with an attached rake would come down to the beach and run it through the sand as a group of ten men followed behind it, picking up any rubbish it kicked up. What's more, the sea was calm, unlike in other parts of the island, and so ideal for swimming. Needless to say that on day one we found our spot and went back everyday bar one until we left for the airport, picking up the odd Chang to enjoy the sunset with.

60p from the 7-11

The day we didn't go back to our spot was the day we went scuba diving. About forty five minutes off of the northern coast of Koh Phangan is Sail Rock, a large, round rock sticking out of the sea. Mark, our long-haired, moustachioed instructor from Belgium, took us down on our first of two dives. As we circled the rock, looking at the clown fish, blue ring angels, rainbow runners and banner fish, we both turned to look for Ashley and she has disappeared.

Naturally, Richard crapped himself as he stayed down with Mark for a minute or so to see if they could find her, but when they couldn't, they ascended to the surface. There she was, bobbing away in the water, the air in her BCD having gathered into the back and taken her up suddenly. We went back down to finish our first session, Richard being sure to stay alongside Ashley at all times.

Sail Rock

Back on the boat, we had a Thai lunch waiting for us and we happily chowed down on the delicious buffet. Lazing around on the upper deck of the boat and waiting for lunch to go down, we basked in the early afternoon sun. Then it was BCD, air tank, fins and mask back on, feet over the edge, step out and - splash - back into the clear blue sea.

The sea was incredibly warm, even at eighteen metres, and the only reason for the super-tight shorty wetsuits we were wearing was to avoid any abrasions on the rocks or sea life. Despite the necessary precautions being taken, Ashley still managed to place her hand directly onto a spikey, black sea urchin. One of its spikes came off in her finger and, for a few weeks after, didn't look like it was coming out any time soon. It actually drew a little blood, making it look far worse than it was, the globules of blood floating around in front of us.

We were fine to carry on though and we finished our second and final dive of the day by entering a naturally formed chimney in the rock. At the bottom of Sail Rock, you swim into an archway and, once inside, you swim up what is essentially a narrow vertical cave, passing coral scallops and starfish as you go, heading for the aqua-blue light at the end of the tunnel. It was very cool!

One more overnight train, and one more speedily made bed, took us back to Bangkok, where we hoped to pick up a couple of pairs last minute, cut-price sunglasses. A word of advice; do not go haggling on Kho Sahn Road at eleven o'clock in the morning. The stall owners will aggressively tell you that "you are crazy" and to "go back to England".

Unsuccessful, it was onto our Lufthansa flight to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.