Another day, another country, SE Asia is flying by and this is our first real test at travelling ourselves as we left the truck to travel through ‘Nam on our own occasionally meeting friends en-route. We crossed the border just south of the DMZ and paid a flying visit to Hue, a beautiful old citadel city before catching a tourist coach to Hoi-An. 
Travel in ‘Nam is extremely cheap and easy – a 4 hour ride on a brand new air-con coach was less than $2, an overnight trip of 600km was $6!
Hoi-An is one of the few towns in the country to escape damage by American bombs during the war and as such is a quaint mix of traditional Vietnamese, French colonial, Chinese and new architecture. Built on the banks of a lazy river a short distance from the sea it was a perfect place to recharge our batteries and put our feet up. We stayed in the sumptuous Hoi-An Riverside Resort and Spa for a few nights,
lazing round the pool, having massages and lazy days catching rays on a private beach. On the rare occasions we could drag ourselves away we were wandering around town, popping into Chinese trading houses and getting measured for suits. Hoi-An is the centre of Vietnam’s tailoring industry and we had some great stuff hand made for a fraction of the cost back home. As we intended to be there for 3 days and ended up there for six, we decided we had better move on. 
Catching an overnight bus we went to Nha-Trang, Vietnam’s most popular beach resort – nice if you like that sort of thing but we may as well have been in Spain, we hired a motorbike for the day to see the sights and then left the following day to the much more relaxed resort of Mui-Ne, home of the famous red sand dunes. En-route Nick made a new friend in the shape of a three year old Vietnamese boy
travelling with his grandmother. He was intrigued with Nick’s PSP and they spent most of the four hour journey playing games, having fun-fights and generally being mischievous. 
His grandmother didn’t seem to mind as she decided to go to sleep as soon as he left her for Nick!
Mui-Ne is a long stretch of white sand with bars, restaurants and hotels facing the sea, we rented a bungalow in the centre if the strip and quickly set ourselves up to do very little for the next few days (can you see a pattern forming here?)
we did hire a motorbike for one day so we could visit the 50m reclining Buddha 45km down the road, a cable car took us over the limestone hills and we had a relaxing morning visiting several shrines in the area before heading back on the infamous highway 1. We stopped at a small “Bia Hoi” for lunch and a fresh beer to take back with us. Bia Hoi outlets are to be found all over Vietnam and sell cheap snacks such as chilli beef and (more importantly) fresh beer. An example of how cheap is as follows: 1x chilli beef, 1x pork with ginger, vegetables and nuts, 7 litres of beer – all for 70B or one pound ten!
Reluctantly moving on we met some friends in Saigon just in time for the Newcastle v. Boro game. As we were in a hurry we dived into the first bar with a large plasma; it took us a while to realize that we were the only ones watching TV and Christine was the only girl in the bar over the age of 18 and not wearing a tiny skirt. All the men were over 50, fat, bald and American – still the beer was cheap and they even sold chip butties! Once they were convinced that all we were interested in was the footy, they were sweet.
Saigon has to be seen to be believed, the traffic is incredible, nothing ever closes and it is hot, noisy and busy – one of our favourite cities so far! For once we didn’t hire bikes as the roads were too mental, instead we hired motorbike taxis to get us around, we’ll try and post video as it was really cool darting between buses and trucks with hundreds of other bikes doing the same. On one journey five of us got the taxi-bikes lined up and told them the first to get us to our hotel got double the fare – we ran red lights, went the wrong way down back streets, cut everyone up and generally had a ball. We had a night out in a German bierkeller after visiting the war remnants museum which was really sobering,
especially
after seeing the weapons used, the effects of American biological weapons and what has been happening since then. 
On that happy note, we’re off to Cambodia to visit the reminders of the Pol Pot regime and Angkor Wat...
Travel in ‘Nam is extremely cheap and easy – a 4 hour ride on a brand new air-con coach was less than $2, an overnight trip of 600km was $6!Hoi-An is one of the few towns in the country to escape damage by American bombs during the war and as such is a quaint mix of traditional Vietnamese, French colonial, Chinese and new architecture. Built on the banks of a lazy river a short distance from the sea it was a perfect place to recharge our batteries and put our feet up. We stayed in the sumptuous Hoi-An Riverside Resort and Spa for a few nights,
lazing round the pool, having massages and lazy days catching rays on a private beach. On the rare occasions we could drag ourselves away we were wandering around town, popping into Chinese trading houses and getting measured for suits. Hoi-An is the centre of Vietnam’s tailoring industry and we had some great stuff hand made for a fraction of the cost back home. As we intended to be there for 3 days and ended up there for six, we decided we had better move on. 
Catching an overnight bus we went to Nha-Trang, Vietnam’s most popular beach resort – nice if you like that sort of thing but we may as well have been in Spain, we hired a motorbike for the day to see the sights and then left the following day to the much more relaxed resort of Mui-Ne, home of the famous red sand dunes. En-route Nick made a new friend in the shape of a three year old Vietnamese boy
travelling with his grandmother. He was intrigued with Nick’s PSP and they spent most of the four hour journey playing games, having fun-fights and generally being mischievous. 
His grandmother didn’t seem to mind as she decided to go to sleep as soon as he left her for Nick!Mui-Ne is a long stretch of white sand with bars, restaurants and hotels facing the sea, we rented a bungalow in the centre if the strip and quickly set ourselves up to do very little for the next few days (can you see a pattern forming here?)
we did hire a motorbike for one day so we could visit the 50m reclining Buddha 45km down the road, a cable car took us over the limestone hills and we had a relaxing morning visiting several shrines in the area before heading back on the infamous highway 1. We stopped at a small “Bia Hoi” for lunch and a fresh beer to take back with us. Bia Hoi outlets are to be found all over Vietnam and sell cheap snacks such as chilli beef and (more importantly) fresh beer. An example of how cheap is as follows: 1x chilli beef, 1x pork with ginger, vegetables and nuts, 7 litres of beer – all for 70B or one pound ten!Reluctantly moving on we met some friends in Saigon just in time for the Newcastle v. Boro game. As we were in a hurry we dived into the first bar with a large plasma; it took us a while to realize that we were the only ones watching TV and Christine was the only girl in the bar over the age of 18 and not wearing a tiny skirt. All the men were over 50, fat, bald and American – still the beer was cheap and they even sold chip butties! Once they were convinced that all we were interested in was the footy, they were sweet.
Saigon has to be seen to be believed, the traffic is incredible, nothing ever closes and it is hot, noisy and busy – one of our favourite cities so far! For once we didn’t hire bikes as the roads were too mental, instead we hired motorbike taxis to get us around, we’ll try and post video as it was really cool darting between buses and trucks with hundreds of other bikes doing the same. On one journey five of us got the taxi-bikes lined up and told them the first to get us to our hotel got double the fare – we ran red lights, went the wrong way down back streets, cut everyone up and generally had a ball. We had a night out in a German bierkeller after visiting the war remnants museum which was really sobering,
especially
after seeing the weapons used, the effects of American biological weapons and what has been happening since then. 
On that happy note, we’re off to Cambodia to visit the reminders of the Pol Pot regime and Angkor Wat...
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