Vietnam - Sapa (29 - 31 May)

A cold foggy spooky hilltop town. Caz had to wear all her clothes to keep warm in the evenings. Unlike everybody else we didn't join 'the tour' from Hanoi, and instead explored by ourselves bar joining a one day trek. We drove to the next town on a motorbike over a high pass through the mountains where there was thick fog and rain, but the weather was better on the other side so we could see far down the mountains. Stopped for a 3-in-1 coffee and a boiled egg or two at a shack at the bottom of the pass and the old woman tried to sell us a box of Choco-Pies. Hmm, just imagine...

Still, went on a group trek (OK, more of a ramble) down a valley and through some hilltribe villiages. The paths were really slippy cos of all the rain so most of the 15k walk was through thick mud. Amazingly Caz only fell in the mud once but we both had mud soaked trainers (up to the ankle) which took a lot of cleaning, and the farmyard smell is still there in Caz's left trainer, urgh!

The strangest sight was a hilltribe women lying flat in the mud unconscious (but beathing) apparently after drinking too much rice wine despite it only being lunchtime. The fellow villiages seemed to think that it was best to leave her lying there until she woke up but we weren't so sure!

Lots of hilltribe people in fancy dress, er I mean traditional clothing, that included long blue leg warmers and wellies, or something.

Vietnam - Hanoi (27 - 28 May)

Saw Uncle Ho Chi Minh in his mausoleum, he looked really small and waxy and he didn't say much. There's also a statue of Lenin in the park. Seems like some of these guys still actually believe in communism and all that. Its strange, Vietnam's a Communist country, one party and all that, but everyone seems to be hard-nosed capitalists. They've certainly tricked us out of a buck or two since we've been here.

Had an amazing tropical storm here. I dumped torrential rain for two hours and there was about a foot of water gushing down the main streets. An hour later it had all drained away, everyone mopped out their ground floor and carried on as if nothing had happened.

Vietnam - Cat Ba Island / Halong Bay (20 - 25 May)

Hmm yes, went by local ramshackle communist-style cattle/prison train and lcoal ferry to Cat Ba Island. Went on a jungle trek (ok, walk) through some great hills.

Toured the island on motorbike in pouring rain, stopped to see an old cave from the war, where an old army officer and his tiny (grand?)daughter showed us round ('ah this room ah for play... ping-pong'') and made us sing ''Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam Ho Chi Minh...'' for ages.

Hired our own little boat and some people to sail it for us and we puttered around the magnificent Halong Bay Islands for a few days and slept out at sea on the roof of the boat.

Vietnam - Hoi An, Hue (15 - 19 May)

Hoi An was (or, I suppose, is) a kind of ye olde England version of Vietnam, like Chester or York or Sparrowpit is to England. Lots of quaint shops and a little harbour but rather too many people whose cousins have a tailor's shop that they'd like you to visit. Spent a couple of nice days at the seaside as well. The scenery in Vietnam is amazing - beautiful mountains, coastlines, rice paddy fields...

Hue, well, it wasn't that it was bad but we sort of saw it only when it was grey and rainy and it had some old royal palace or something that wasn't really convincing and the whole place seemed a bit grey and drab. Went to a cafe that was run by a deaf and dumb man. In true Vietnamese sneaky cheaty style, two cafes next door opened up with - guess what? - a deaf and dumb man supposedly running them.

Vietnam - Nha Trang (13-14 May)

A kind of beach resort place, but we haven't done much sunbathing cos the weather was a bit stormy. Went to a mudbath spa resort thing and had a big mudbath!

Vietnam - Dalat (11-12 May)

A town up in the hills = nice and cool, an escape from the heat. Everyone up here goes around in coats and hats! Went on a tinpot little train, and then on a giant swan pedalo and have eaten lots of cakes. Not all at the same time. That's about it

Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) (6-10 May))

Thought Saigon would be a huge grimy sprawl and we would want to leave quickly but we love it here for some reason. Everywhere is bustling and fast moving and open late - it is a novelty to go out at 9pm and not have to beg a reataurant to feed you. Went to a bar that had a seedy edge to it to play pool. Challenged by a 10yr old girl who was really good, but somehow we played really well and managed to see her off and win our 10,000Dong bet (30 pence)

Went to STA to change our flight dates, where we helped a Vietnamese man plan his trip from London to West Brom, then we were invited by the staff to join them for lunch where we learnt some Vietnamese. The STA boss even paid for our lunch.

We have seen a war museum and visited tunnels dug by the Vietnamese during the war. After one sales pitch too many, our guide cowers in fear as we threaten him with a pashmina. Went on a river tour of the Mekong Delta and saw plenty of rivers and suchlike.

Cambodia - Sihanoukville & Kampot (27 April - 4 May)

Sihanoukville had a bunch of great beaches: our favourite was usually pretty deserted and beautiful, with little islands in the bay and lovely white sand. Almost every evening there was an amazing sunset that covered the sky and changed colour every minute. There's also been some great thunder and lightning to balance it all out. We've been on the beach in the blazing sun while thunder rumbling in the distance and watched beautiful sunsets with flashes of lightning in the other direction. Our 3hr share taxi to Kampot meant 5 of us squeezed into an old Toyota; this meant us sharing the middle seat squeezed between two fat Frenchwomen - argh!

At Kampot we explored a couple of caves with a motorbike and guide - this meant us two squeezing onto a little motorbike behind the driver as he took us down narrow dirt roads and over a makeshift oil drum and wooden plank bridge. The caves were good and we did a bit of climbing around and sqeezing through holes. Also took a trip to the top of a nearby mountain where there's a ruined hill station, including a run down spooky old hotel on top of a hill that looked where the Addams family might live. We rode in the back of a pick up truck up a rough roack track through the jungled to get to the top, we're a bit battered and bruised! Trekked through a bit of jungle and managed to avoid any snakes (!) then had a boat trip out in the sea. Our trip back to Phnom Penh was in a new air conditioned bus, but unfortunately it was along an old dirt road and the new bus had crazy suspension that meant that we were all bouncing around like we were on space hoppers for 5 hours.

Cambodia - Phnom Penh (24 -26 April & 5 May)

A really big, busy city but we really liked it for some reason. They have 'cyclos' - a sort of wheelchair with a bicycle attached to it and the driver sitting really high up behind, like an old penny farthing bike. Saw a temple on the only hill in the city with loads of friendly monkeys in the gardens nearby. Had a decent guesthouse that had a third floor balcony on the corner of the street where we could look at the busy streets below. Saw some royal palace or something or other... Rory had his hair cut in a random barber's shop. They did an ok job (no worse than usual) and for some reason all the barbers wore surgical masks...

The trafic here is really frantic: there's only a handful of traffic lights and no road markings at all - people just steer around each other and drive the wrong way up the street if they need to. The law is that the biggest vehicles are the boss and they use their horns constantly to warn other people or animals (lots of random cows on the main roads) where they are. Nobody gets angry though: there's no shouting, no angry beeping horns and no road rage. It seems to work pretty well, though there has just been a motorbike crash outside as I write this!

Visited the Cheoung Ek killing field / war memorial: 16000 people were executed here when the Khmer Rouge were in power and now 8000 of their skulls are housed behind glass in the grisly memorial. After, we visited S-21/Tuol Sleng prison: an old school converted into a prison/torture camp for people who were accused of 'anti-revolutionary' crimes. They were forced to make confessions, then killed at Cheoung Ek (if they had not already died at the prison). Only 7 out of thousands of prisoners survived. There was 100s of mug shots on the walls, taken when they arrived. 1 in 5 Cambodians (2 million people) died in the 4 years that they were in power. Pretty grim.