OK, so after a pretty amazing time in Cambodia we headed into Vietnam. Of all the countries, this was the one I was looking forward to the most. Unfortunately, it got off to a bad start, with Both Laura and I getting ill from a restaurant in Phnom Peng, and by the time we got to Saigon we were in a bad way. Turns out there's not much to do in Saigon except drink, so it's not a great place to be when you have the s***s.

We spent 3 days there recovering, and after some self prescribed antibiotics we got back on our feet and headed to the southern highlands, to a small town called Dalat. It's where a lot of Vietnamese go on their honeymoon apparently, and has a beautiful lake in the centre (well it would have been beautiful if it haddn't been drained for maintanace work!). We decided to treat ourselves and stay in a luxury room with 2 double beds, clean bathroom, hot water and sky TV. It only cost us 15USD a night! It's a bit colder up there, but we still wore shorts and t-shirt while the locals all had North Face jackets on. It definately wasn't cold, and we ended up sunburnt. We took in a 17k trek which was hard work in the heat, and the 2 rickety 50 meter suspension bridges we had to walk over were pretty hair raising. By the end we were knackered, so had day off relaxing in the bars before we made our way east to Nha Trang.

The bus would have taken us through some stunning mountain roads and been a perfectly adequate way to travel, but we decided to cycle there, with a 4x4 following us Top Gear style. The ride was 70k in total across some amazing valleys, waterfalls and villages, with stunning views all the way. The first 35k was hard going, and Laura had to tap out after the first 20k and take a break in the 4x4. I powered on up, including an 8k hill, before we reached the final 35k which was all downhill winding through mountain sides. It was the best bike ride I've ever done, slightly eclipsing the 6.5k Streatham to Southwark I did every day to work. It ranks as one of the highlights of the trip.

When we arrived in Nha Trang we kept it simple, beach and bars. It was the first tourist 'resort' we had been to for a while, so we figured we may as well get smashed each day and recover on the beach. Problem was, on the second day we got smashed on a few vodkas and buckets, and work up at midday the next day still feeling drunk and hungover at the same time, and barely being able to move. I've had a few nights where I've overdone it in my time, but never felt like that. We were starting to think that something was wrong (as honestly, we didn't actually go over the top with alcohol that night) when I started to come out in a really itchy rash, that kept appearing and fading all over (even my face), and it took us both until 1pm the following day to actually get out of the hotel room. Apparantly Nha Trang is well known for having very dodgy homemade alcohol at times, and we had a pretty bad reaction to it.

When we did finally get mobile, it was the Tet Lunar New Year. Unbeknownst to us, 80,000 Vietnamese were planning to congregate on the beach to see the new year in. Sounded great to us, like a full moon party without the backpackers. It was slightly more chilled that a full moon party, with families sitting on the beach with beers and bbq's, but a great was to spend an evening none the less, especially as we didin't feel like getting wrecked that night. So us, a few other random backpackers and 80,000 Vietnamese counted down the year of the rat, and watched the fireworks as we moved into the year of the tiger.

The next day we got the night bus to Hoi An, which has the most amazing beach. It stretches from Hoi An to Da Nang, 30k north. 30k of pristine white sand, and we only had to walk 10 mins from the main bit to be completly on our own. The fishing boats in the photos above were pretty cool, although I resited the urge to jump in and through the net out, pretneding I was a local fishing for lunch. I was also tempted to get a suit tailor made, but with no job and no real need for a suit in my line of work anyway, I figured I could do without. Hoi An was a beautiful town, with hlf the buildings under UNESCO protection. While we were there, there was some kind of festival going on. While I didn't know what it was for, the sight of small paper lanterns holding lit candles floating down the river was a wonderful sight.