Hello!

Well, I think it is about time I got round to tying up some loose ends, before our journey becomes a distant memory and I start to question whether it ever happened.

In those last couple of weeks between Nha Trang and Hong Kong we made our way up the coast through Hoi-An, Hue, and Hanoi, some of the most beautiful places in Vietnam. Hoi-an was a real diamond of a town, full of ancient chinese architecture it is a preserved world heritage site and is famous for its ancient customs and celebrations. We were lucky enough to be involved in some of these whilst we were here where there full moon celebration fell in the middle of our stay. Unfortunately it was another of those moments, like the drag show in Wellington, where I forgot the camera, but it was quite a site to see the town lit by hundreds of paper lanterns floating up the river and celebrating with traditional dancing, martial arts displays, and more bizarely...some kind of Vietnamese bingo game. Other than that, in Hoi-An we went on a cookery course at the Red Bridge Cookery School. We learnt the art of Vietnamese food from a guy capable of adding salt to his food with chopsticks. Needless to say, our fresh pancakes were a bit on the floppy side, but it was good fun and we perfected our chopstick skills.

Moving on from Hoi-An we went to Hue with its ancient ruins. To be perfectly honest Hue was a little non-descript, and its ruins really were ruined. We weren't here for too long, but enough to think it lacked the charm of Hoi-An and the bussle of Hanoi or Saigon. Maybe it was partly down to the heat, and the sort of anticlimax of any ruins after Angkor Wat but we were glad to move onto Hanoi, we had to make it though the bus journey first

We decided to push the boat out on our final overnight bus, and got a 'sleeper bus'. Tom got lucky and found a long bed, but there wasnt so much sleep for me, as the sleeper bus was made in Korea, and designed for people about my height, but minus the legs. Now, we count ourselves lucky in our travels, other than the slow boat in Laos and the Magic bus in NZ we hadnt really broken down the whole time. It was just before our journey I was claiming this (without knocking on wood). Well, unsuprisingly our bus broke down and our 12 hour journey turned into 13 hours, 14 hours, 15 hours....18 hours later we made it to Hanoi.

We stayed in the old quarter of Hanoi and it was like a little bubble of madness. It really epitomised SE Asia with its street sellers and traffic, and charmed us more than any other asian city. We went to see a Water-puppetry at the local theatre (basically puppets, in water), and spent a day going out to the beautiful Halong Bay with its limestone peaks and caves. We ate some more fantastic Vietnamese grub and wandered the streets taking in some of the atmosphere. It was just a great place to finish of SE Asia, and a part of the world I have no doubt we will go back to.

From here on in you know what happenes, we made it to Hong Kong in one piece and eventually bronzed and weary we turned up on a Virgin Atlantic flight at Heathrow at 6:05 am on a drizzly English morning, 31/08/08.

Now, with a little retrospect and time to let it all sink in, I guess I ought to try and summarise for us. We started to write a list of 'favourites' but it all seems a bit impossible. There were definite highs, like our first dive in Fiji or taking a slow boat for a couple of days along the Mekong. And, although they were few and far between, there were also lows; waking up to find cockraoches wandering over your legs is never going to be good, no matter how many bows you put on it. But with the sound advice from family, friends, books and fellow travellers we made it home in one piece. It may not be a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and pales in comparison to these people that make it around the world on a penny-farthing and god-knows what else, but to us it was an adventure, a bit of a test and a bloody good ride!

Thanks for reading our ramblings, I am going to go and print this all off now, so that future Liz and Tom can read it and remember that it isnt always the 9-5. Maybe when we are old and retired we can do it all again!

Happy Travelling!

Liz and Tom

xxx