Hi again,

Im writing from Siem Reap in Cambodia. I think i left the last blog when we were in Saigon so ill start from there. Saigon was a fun city with our trip to the Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi tunnels being the highlight. The Temple is a place of worship for the religion of Cao Dai which combines Christianity, Buddhism and Confuscianism - i think. Its a great temple with lots of bright colours. We got to see a service where all the people come dressed in different colours to pray to whichever God they like. Interesting place and friendly people as they didnt mind us crashing their service or posing for pictures. The Cu Chi tunnels were really interesting too and we got to climb in to the tunnels to see what it was like for the soldiers in the war. There are still also huge craters in the ground caused by the American bombs. Afterwards we had some tea and Tapioca which is like sweet potato. It was nice. The trip was made better also by the fact we had a Vietnamese tour guide that loved cockney rhyming slang. He didnt miss an opportunity to throw it in, asking us if we wanted some rosy lee and saying "shall i be mother?" as the tea was served. I think he managed to use about 10 pieces of cockney rhyming slang during the day.

After Saigon we thought we would treat ourselves to a bit of relaxation and booked flights to an island just off the coast of Vietnam called Phu Quoc. It was only an hour flight so we thought why not. We arrived at our hotel and quickly realised that we were the only guests. A bit weird as the hotel was quite big but at least we would have the pool to ourselves and fast service in the restaurant. We wanted to explore the island a bit and realised that the only way to do this is by hiring motorbikes as there are hardly any taxis around and where we were staying was a bit desserted. The hotel had motorbikes for hire so we took them out for a few hours to look around the island. I have to admit to being a bit apprehensive about riding a motorbike as it was a totally new experience for me. The guy who owned the motorbikes seemed to have full confidence in me telling me "you'll be fine" as the bike nearly went off without me after pulling on the accelerator. The staff gathering around and laughing did little to calm my nerves. We had a look around and all loved being on the motorbikes. We all agreed to take them out the next day and go to a beach on the other side of the island. So the next day we hired the biks again all feeling much more confident of our abilities from our practice the day before. We went off in search of Sao Beach. We found it and it was beautiful, white sand, turquoise water and hardly anyone there. We virtually had the beach to ourselves. We stayed and relaxed for a few hours but were soon getting the urge to jump on the bikes again. We decided that we would explore the northen part of the island as there was a picture of a monkey on a map that we had seen, leading us to believe that there would be some sort of monkey conservation park there...i guess we had been exposed to too much sun. So we set off to find the imaginary monkey park, following the odd road sign that led to the town on the most northern part of the island. Everything was going well until the road stopped becoming a road and turned into a dusty clay pathway, with road signs and human life becoming more and more scarce. We had been travelling for a good 45 minutes and then it started to rain. Now if we were riding on a tarmac road then this wouldnt be too much of a problem but when you are off road the ground beneath your wheels starts to get very soft. We carried on and were met with our next problem which was trying to ride down 10 foot drops and then up the other side again made even harder by the fact that the rain made the descent and climb very tricky - especially for a group of lads who have never driven motorbikes. Unfortunately i lost control of my bike and fell off. Not a bad fall but i grazed my arm and a lady who was on a motorbike behind me was pointing and laughing. Anyway we carried on and were met by more drops that were getting bigger and bigger. The rain stopped and then started again and this time got harder. We got to a huge drop and saw 2 men coming from the opposite direction. They saw us and were waving their arms telling us not to go on as they had just come from that way. We looked at each other and all kind of felt that we had come so far it would be a waste to turn back now. Also thinking that there cant be many more drops like this - how wrong we were. Foolishly we carried on, after more drops and more rain it was starting to get dark which would have made the drops unbelievably dangerous. Mike was running out of petrol and we were in the middle of the jungle not knowing where we were going. It was at this point that we had to make a decision to go back and do all those drops again but with the knowledge that we are on our way home, or carry on and hope that there werent many more drops and that we would be out of the jungle before dark. We decided to go back. We had to try and get back quickly because if it got dark before we got through the drops then it could get dangerous. We had also driven past a snake on the way which i didnt fancy spending the night with in the jungle. Luckily we saw a man that gave Mike some petrol and we made it out of the jungle to see the street lights of the road where we had begun the journey. We got back to the hotel with the bikes covered in mud, i had fallen off the bike 3 times in total and had broken the foot rest on the bike. The hotel weren't too pleased but we were just happy to be back in one piece. And funnily enough we haven't driven a motorbike since. The next couple of days we spent relaxing.

Next stop was Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This was a tough journey and ended up taking 3 days to get there. We got a boat from Phu Quoc that took us to a town in mainland Vietnam called Rach Gia. Clearly not many people go to Rach Gia as people were staring at us and coming up to us and shaking our hands. We had no idea where we going and with no other tourists around to ask we jumped on motorbike taxis that took us to a bus station which we were told by the driver would take us to the border at Chau Doc. The bus was for locals and didnt have the same feel as the tourist comfort coaches that we have been used to. As there is no air con on these buses, the windows have to be open. Unfortunately you are soon joined by mosquitos and other insects for the journey. As we had a light above our heads we were getting swarmed and spent most of the journey trying to kill the little b*****s, which of course the locals found very funny. We then transferred to another bus which we were told would take us to Chau Doc. Fortunately nobody was trying to stitch us up and we arrived at Chau Doc around 11pm. Too late to get to Cambodia so we had to get a hotel room. The next day we were told that we couldnt get to Phnom Penh until the following day so had to spend another night in Chau Doc where there is nothing to do. We eventually got on the boat and sailed up the Mekong River into Cambodia. Then we got a coach that took us to central Phnom Penh and then a tuk tuk to our hostel. So after 3 days, 2 boat journeys, 2 bus journeys, a motorbike taxi and a tuk tuk, we were finally settled. Phnom Penh was another good city that felt very European. We went to see the Killing fields and the torture prison of the 1970's genocide which was a moving experience. We also went Go Karting, Miles crashed when one of his wheels came off! He is fine though. Chris won after driving like a lunatic with absolutely no regard for his or anyone elses safety. After Phnom Penh we caught the bus to Siem Reap. We have been to see Angkor Wat which was amazing. Not much else here apart from that so we are just chilling out, playing pool and going swimming until we fly to Vientienne, Laos which is on Friday.

So i think thats covered everything. Pretty long blog actually. So mail me and let me know what you've been up to.

Speak soon

Nick x