Starting in Hue with the remaining Halong Bay crew we decided to set off on a 3 day bike tour with Dr Phu (our tour guide). The daunting experience of riding a scooter through the Vietnam mountains was too much for us therefore us 2 and Tess decided to be ladies of leisure and jump on the back of Dr Phu, Shane and Alex with Matt and Dev bringing up the rear individually. We completed our first challenge of escaping the city (life threatening experience in itself!), heading to our first stop the "blood stream".

Stopping for a local lunch of chicken (bones and insides included!) before heading up the mountains, into the jungle towards thae Laos border. We had regular scenic stops as well as some unplanned "technical hitches" with some of the bikes, from which Dr Phu came to our resuce! Eventually arriving at the minority village where we were bombarded by 40 families worth of half naked vietnamese children awaiting in anticipation for the bags of sweets we brought for them. A quick game of volleyball with the older kids which we blatanty won, before we headed back on the road, finishing our first day along the Ho Chi Minh trail in the village of Prao with the grottiest accommodation so far (mattress not included in the price for Dev). Covering 200km on our first day through some amazing scenery including jungles, waterfulls and rivers.

Day 2: Our early start was hindered by puncture number 2! An impressive 20mins repair from Dr Phu with his trusted can he fix it kit. Although it started impressively sunny we soon needed a pit stop to change into our very sexy full length poncho's, which we remained in the whole day. We stopped for a snack at the pineapple farm, buying half their stock to use later. We continued through mountains and rice fields until confronting our next challenge; the barge! consisting of driving onto a ricketty old wooden barge, travelling across the river trying to stay afloat in the most terrential rain that we have seen. Arriving on the other side and then having to drive through part or the river and beach to reach the road (only Dev falling off and ending up in the sand). Due to the rain we drove all the way to My Son and then away to Hoi An our final destination for the second day. Chilling out with a few drinks and games of pool to finish a very wet, but funny day.

Day 3: Finally the rain had stopped and the sun came out to play. We set off down the highway stopping at the Marble Mountain where we expolred the cves containing amazing carvings of heaven and hell. We also decided that the car park was the best and safest place for us to attempt to ride the scooters for the first time. We established that 4th gear was the only way we could pull away and actually control the bikes. We decided to return the driving back to the guys as we headed to the beach for a quick dip. Then we headed back up the mountains past the lady Buddha statue. We climbed so high that we were amongst the clouds in the mountains when we stopped to explore the American bunkers. We stopped for lunch at a very posh seafood restuarant where we got our pineapple chopped up (in a true cheap backpacker style!). Our last stop was the Elephant waterfall where Tess and Shane went for a full dip, whilst some of us only braved up to our knees. Squeezing in one photo taken by a very drunk "guide". We set off on our final stretch along the crazy highway, mostly in the dark returning back to Hue for a well deserved drink or two or three with our new masckot "porky the pineapple" who survived the whole night in his fancy dress outfit (pictures to follow).

This was by far the best three days we have had with the 4 Aussies, our 2 fellow pommies and Dr Phu!

There is no better way to explore Vietnam than on bikes (preferrably as a passanger on the back so you get to see everything, take pictures and let someone else do the hard work.