Sunday 11th FebruaryWe head off to Halong Bay passing french colonial style houses along the way - the remnants of the influence prior to Vietnam gaining independence in 1958. The houses have built without any thought for the future as they are all at slightly different angles and set further back or forwards from the road. So if you were to join them up everyone's front doors would not line up. Hee hee.There are rice fields in every direction for as far as t...

Friday 9th FebruaryWe've arrived in Hanoi and the place is mentalist! Apparently it's worse than usual as it's the run up to Tet which is the Lunar New Year here. We venture out onto the streets and try to do as the Lonely Planet book says and walk slowly across the street into the oncoming stream of mopeds while your senses are screaming at you to run like you would in the UK. Apparently though you are meant to walk slowly so they can see where you a...

Thursday 1st FebruaryWe arrive in Chiang Mai after a good nights sleep on the train and got a tuk-tuk to our hostel called 'Nice Place 1'. Chiang Mai means 'New Town' as the people moved here from Chiang Rai due to the severe droughts they suffer from up there.We came to the conclusion today that we just haven't allowed enough time to do everything we want to here in Asia. So we decided to put our flights to Australia back by 2 weeks. The peop...

Wednesday 31st JanuaryWe head to Ayutthaya today. This was the capital city before Bangkok. It's beautiful here and a huge shame the Burmese raised it to the ground. It must have been stunning in it's time. We visited various sites around the city. At the first one we climbed the stupa whereupon hordes of thai schoolgirls proceeded to shyly say 'hello', 'you're beautiful' and 'i love you' to us before giggling behind their hand...

Saturday 27th JanuaryWe arrived back in Bangkok from Ko Tao and go to meet Kate's Mum and her boyfriend Nick who are here on a tour for a couple of weeks. It's lovely to see someone from home. I miss everyone heaps.We've been on virtually all forms of public transport possible within the last 24 hours - the boat from Ko Tao to Chumpon, the overnight bus, then a water taxi and the Skytrain up to Khao San Road (backpackers hangout), and finally on the M...