June 2009

We got a bus, moped and hydrofoil boat to get to Cat Ba. We left Hanoi at 5 in the morning and were in Cat Ba town by midday. There were slight complications with our hotel when we arrived and we ended up having to find somewhere else, but it got sorted in the end! Cat Ba is an island in the middle of Halong Bay, famous for being a set in several James Bond movies, with famous big rocky islands scattered around the bay. Unfortunatly, the weather has been a bit overcast, but its quite good as we dont burn as much! We didnt realise before coming to the island that its currently the school holidays in Vietnam and this is the place they all seem to come by the looks of it! The beaches were heaving this afternoon, so much so that we couldnt face it! We shall try again tomorrow.

We hired a moped today and went to explore the island as the harbour front where we are staying is over crowded to say the least! The rest of the island is so quiet and stunning its like a different world out there. We drove all the way to the north of the island and that took us 1hr and 30 mins to get that far, so we turned back as we didnt want to run out of petrol! Cat Ba is really pretty though, and we have the whole of tomorrow as well to go to the beach again!

We leave Cat Ba the day after and head back to Hanoi for one night before we get the bus the next morning to Nanning in China!

We hope you are all well,

Lots of Love,
Chris and Alex xxx

p.s. We may add something tomorrow depending on what we choose to do!!

We got a really long train from Hue to Hanoi the other day, which took 14 hours. The air con wasn't as good as we would have hoped and the guy we had to share our compartment with kept playing his casette player really loud, but it could have been a lot worse! We got to Hanoi at night, so we went straight to bed. On the following day, we spent most of the morning booking our bus into China, and our mode of transport to Halong Bay and back. Both of which we managed to get sorted, the latter through an attendent at the bus station with whom we ended up speaking german to! Random! After this we visited a Confucious temple on an island in the middle of the city's lake! We finished off the day by visiting Hanoi's cathedral - very francais!

Today we got up very early and got a taxi moped (the only way to get around the gridlocked streets) to go and see Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, which was absolutley heaving with people at 8am! We had to check in everything we were carrying and then were filed past the clear coffin in single file and in silence. After this we also went to see where he lived - in a little stilt house apparently! Chris and I have doubts as to whether he is real, lets just say he looked a bit rubbery! After that we got another moped to go to the famous Hanoi Hilton Prison (Hoa Low), which was where John McCain was tortured and held prisoner throughout the war. Quite an interesting place, but much of the complex of buildings have been knocked down, so you can only see a few cells. After that we got another scooter back through the winding streets to the air con of the hotel room! Hanoi is really great, its completly mad and hectic like any capital city! Each of the streets sells a different thing, so there is a whole street that just sells sunglasses, and one which sells cuddly toys and on and on...really traditional! It still looks very french with big road crossings and lots of lakes and trees everywhere.

We leave Hanoi tomorrow to get a bus to Cat Ba island, which is in Halong Bay (the James Bond islands). We will be there for a few days before coming back to Hanoi for a night and then leaving the next morning on our bus to Nanning in China!

Hope everyone is well,
Missing you all lots,
Lots of Love
Chris and Alex xxx

We got a train from Hoi An the other day, which was only 4 hours long, but ended up being possibly the longest 4 hours of our lives! Just our luck that not only were we stuck in a carriage where everyone wanted to recline their seats on us and go to sleep, but the Air Con within the carriage decided to die halfway through the journey. Of course the train attendants didn’t notice and we melted away until they turned it back on 5 minutes before we landed in Hue! Just typical! Either way we were glad to get off the train, and we got our pick up to the hotel (which turned out to be 2 scooters) and flew through the streets of Hue to the hotel!

Hue is very pretty, and still quite French looking with big boulevards mixing with smaller narrower streets. It has somehow mixed French and Vietnamese culture quite easily, creating a very laid back town! It is pronounced her-whay, as there is supposed to be an accent on the e at the end a la Francais! We hired a scooter yesterday as it is the best way to see the town mainly because the main sights are quite spread out really. We started off going further down the river (called the perfume river...Chris and I have yet to detect that perfume scent, but its a pretty name nonetheless!) to go and see a famous old Thien Mu pagoda, which is now considered the symbol of Vietnam. Its on a hill and over looks the whole river and the town, a lovely site for such a relaxing temple.

After that we tootled back down into town and went to explore the famous citadel, which is massive! There are 3 bridges to get across the moat and through the wall, one for the emperor, one for his advisors (called Mandarins) and the other for the servants and soldiers!! The famous bit is the palace in the middle, so we went and saw how the other side used to live. It was very impressive despite the fact that it was heavily destroyed in both a massive earthquake in 1947 and the war in the 70s. After that we drove around the rest of the citadel, which was like another world, a lot quieter than the town on the other side of the wall!

After visiting the citadel, we drove across the river and headed south along the river banks to find the famous royal tombs, where the emperor and his family were buried. After getting lost a couple of times we found them in the end, just before they closed! It was more of a small village complex than a tomb, but very impressive, with steps and bridges over water symbolising his journey! Very nice and peaceful. After that we headed back to town.

Today we haven’t really done that much, just some catching up with ourselves really. Tomorrow we get an early morning train to the capital, Hanoi, which is where we will be staying for a 3 days!

We hope everyone is well, missing you all lots,
Lots of Love
Chris and Alex xxx

Our train from Nha Trang was ace, we had a little compartment with 4 beds in it and amazing air con all to ourselves for the first few hours of the journey - where there was also great scenary! We were joined by a quiet woman a few hours in, who just slept for the whole journey, which was fine by us! We got to Danang about 20 minutes late and then got a taxi the last hour to Hoi An (there is no train station in Hoi An, so this is the only way to get there!). Hoi An is so pretty, its like the Vietnam that time forgot! Firstly its very french with small windy streets and low rise houses all with shutters on them. The waterfront by the river is typically French, very open with lots of restaurants and stalls! We went walking around yesterday and went to see the few sights on offer here, including the Japanese covered bridge which was built in 1593 and some old other buildings! There are not that many sights on offer here, but its more of a place to absorb and just walk around the windy streets. Its quite hard to get lost as the French only build towns using the grid format, bravo! We are both totally in love with Hoi An, its so adorable - we even bought pointy hats!! Its famous for making clothes, as it costs about 60 - 70 pounds to get a suit custom made for you, maybe next time!

Today we went to the nearby ruins of My Son (pronounced Mee Sonn, much to our disappointment), which were really interesting! They are old Cham (ancient Hindu empire) ruins, which were unfortunatly badly damaged during the vietnam war, but are still pretty impressive nonetheless. We walked around for about an hour before getting a taxi back to Hoi An. We leave Hoi An tomorrow afternoon to get a short train further up the cost to Hue.

We hope you are all well,
Missing you lots,

Lots of Love,
Chris and Alex xxx

We got our first Vietnamese train from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang the other day, and it was interesting to say the least. The trains here are very old and not in the best of condition. The AC was pretty dire and our carriage was full of children as well, joy of joys! We made it in the end, nearly 2 hours late and tired out. When we got here it turned out that our room had been double booked by accident, so they had booked us into a nearby hotel for one night until our orginal room was free. Not really a problem, and we moved back to original choice the following morning (where she gave us a bigger room for the same price - woohoo!). Theres not much to see and do here apart from laze around on the beach, which is exactly what we did. The beach is amazing, really good for swimming and very clear! We have basically spent 2 days just relaxing on the beach, good times! It's the school holidays over here as well, so the beach has been rather busy as well! We have had a really relaxing couple of days and we get a very early train tomorrow morning to go to Hoi An, which we are both looking forward to!

Hope you are all well,
Missing you lots,
Lots of Love,
Chris and Alex xxx

Greetings from Vietnam! We got a bus from Phnom Penh, which took us all the way to Ho Chi Minh City, obviously stopping at the border. It was pretty quick and painless and we managed to get through the border in less than an hour. It took us another hour or so to make it through the sprawling suburbs of HCMC, but we got to the centre at about 3pm. So far we both really like Vietnam, the people are lovely and things are cheap! Its full of small windy roads and billions and billions of mopeds! They all walk around with the famous pointy hats on as well, its really ace! We just relaxed for the rest of yesterday and had a quick walk around. Today we went sightseeing and walked to see the colonial buildings and Cathedral which were left by the French, and very impressive they were to - including the post office which we only happened to stumble upon!

After that we went and had a look round the Reunification Palace, which is full of large stately rooms! From there we went to the War Museum, which was really interesting. A one-sided view of the Vietnam War (called The American War of Aggression in Vietnam). The museum was basically a collection of photos showing how cruel the Americans were, along with the obligatory tank, plane and bomb. It was very interesting nevertheless, a side of the war that we don't really see. Thats about it for HCMC, so we headed back to the Air-Con room after that, as it gets very hot here.!

We managed to book all our trains on the first afternoon here, so we are relieved that we can now stick to the schedule! Tomorrow afternoon we are geting on a train which will take about 6 hours to get to Nha Trang, which is a beachy place and where we will be for the next couple of days!

Hope you are all well,
Missing you all lots,
Lots of Love,

Chris and Alex xxx

We got a 5 hour bus the other day from Siem Reap to the capital Phnom Penh. We applied for our Vietnam visa as soon as we arrived, as it takes a couple of days. Its in transit at the moment hopefully and we should get it back tonight. We didn't really do much on the first day as we were both really tired. We got caught in a torrential downpour that evening though, so came back to the room slightly soaked around the edges! We caught up on sleep the next morning and went out in the afternoon to go and see the Royal Palace. Lets just say its not a scratch on Bangkok's Royal Palace! We paid 6 dollars each and spent 30 mins in the complex. You're not allowed to take photos inside the buildings and nothing was that impressive either! We left rather disgruntled and walked around the town for a bit.

Neither of us are very impressed with Cambodia, its very under developed and full of tiny little angry people who are just after your money. We are looking forward to leaving and we have only been here for 4 days!

We got up today and went to see the only other sights in Cambodia, the S-21 Prison and the Killing Fields where all the prisoners were ''buried''. For those that don't know, insane leader Pol Pot decided to cleanse his country by killing his own people - men,women and children. The S-21 prison is a converted school and was operational from 1974-79. In this time thousands of people were killed through obscene methods of torture. The prison has been left as it was found (the dead bodies have been removed), so its pretty harrowing to walk around all the converted classrooms. After this we got a rickshaw all the way out to the Killing Fields, where over 8000 human skulls have been dug up from the mass graves. Its pretty eerie to walk around, its basically a field with lots of craters in it. At the entrance to the Killing Fields is a Pagoda which houses the 8000 skulls, which have been piled high - pretty gross!

Anyway onwards and upwards, we head to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam early tomorrow, which we are both looking forward to! Hope you are all well!

Missing you lots,
Lots of Love
Chris and Alex xxx

We got a flight from KL to Bangkok, where we spent a fast few hours getting some food and sleep, the second of which was minimal! After about 4 hours sleep we got up really early and got a bus to take us to the Cambodian border. It was rather a frustrating journey as we kept stopping every hour and then when we did get to the border they made us wait ages and separated us into groups. We both lost our rag a few to many times. Once we were over the border we got another bus which took us conveniently to the outskirts of the town, even though it was supposed to take us all the way. We ended up having to get a taxi the last bit to the hotel, where we pretty much collapsed for the night. The really annoying thing about Cambodia is that they only use American Dollars, even though its not their currency. Their own, the Riel, is rarely seen and is used to make up change of anything less than a dollar - which means your being short changed due to exchange rates!

We got up really early this morning to go to Angkor Wat, the famous temple complex nearby, which is the only thing Siem Reap has to offer! We hired a 'Moto-remourque' to take us around all the sights for the day, which cost $14 - not bad really! They're everywhere in Cambodia, very odd contraptions! It's basically a moped (which everybody drives here) with a horse-cart on the back...very amusing! We arrived at Angkor Wat for sunrise and it was amazing, smaller than we thought it would be, but very impressive. We completed the smaller circuit which is supposed to take all day and is 27km all the way around. We started at 5am and were back in the hotel room by 10am. We are both quite fast at sightseeing and did each of the temples justice, spending just over an hour at Angkor Wat alone. They were all amazing, some better preserved than others and the last one, Ta Prohm was equally famous as it had trees growing from within the ruins. This is the place that Tomb Raider was filmed by the way - for all the film buffs out there.

We are both tired at the moment, as we have had a few intense days with lots of walking and lots of early starts so we hope to catch up when we get to the capital Phnom Penh. We get a bus very early tomorrow morning to the capital and we are there for a few days as we have to get our Vietnamese visa sorted out!

We hope everyone is well, missing you all lots and lots

Lots of Love
Chris and Alex xxx

p.s. as the internet is so slow in Cambodia we are having difficulties uploading the photos, so Chris will try again when we get to Phnom Penh! sorry!

We got a train out of Singapore across the border and all the way up to KL. It didn't take too long and we ended up having the first afternoon just pottering about. As our hotel is in Chinatown we had a look at the market there and all the weird and wonderful food on offer! The second day we got up really early to go across town using the LRT (local commuter train), so we could queue for tickets to go up the Petronas towers. The tickets are free as the Petronas towers are a working office, but the problem is that they only give out 1200 everyday - so you have to get there early! We got there at 9am (ticket counter opens at 8.30am), as it was midweek we didn't think it would be that busy. Silly us. There was a massive queue by the time we got there, luckily it moved quite fast and we got our tickets half an hour later to go up the towers at 3.30pm. So we left there and went to have a look at the colonial district in the mean time. The buildings were colonial with a Islamic/Malaysian twist, very distinctive! We walked around there for a while and then headed back to the Petronas Towers for our 3.30 trip!

I must admit we were not particularly excited about going up the towers as you only get to go half way up to the sky walk and you are only allowed 10 minutes up there! There are taller things in KL than the sky walk as well, unfortunately rendering these towers not useless, but slightly less significant. They managed to drag the whole thing out for nearly an hour as well, firstly we had to watch a sideshow about the construction and then a 3-d movie about the oil company Petronas and then we had to queue some more. Finally they let us up in the lift and we got to walk up and down the famous sky walk for 10 minutes. The view was pretty amazing, and Im so glad we went up - it would have been something we regretted if we hadn't done it.

After that we headed back to the hotel and then got a taxi to the KL tower, which is 421 metres high (compared to the sky walk in Petronas Towers which is 170 metres high) to go and watch sunset. I didn't realise but Chris had a surprise up his sleeve. We went up to the observation deck to watch the sunset and before it had even set Chris wanted to go - very odd. We went to the lifts to go down, but it turned out that he had booked a table in the 5* revolving restaurant at the very top of the tower, to celebrate our one month anniversary! I had no idea! The view was fantastic and we sat right next to the window. The food was equally yummy as well! We had a fantastic night and walked back into town afterwards.

Today we leave KL and fly back to Bangkok. We leave for the airport this afternoon and get to Bangkok later on this evening. After that we are spending one night in Bangkok and then getting an early bus to Siem Reap in Cambodia, famous for the Angkor Wat temple complex!

Hope everyone is well, missing you lots
Lots of Love
Chris and Alex xxx

We got the longest day train ever to get to Singapore, 14 hours in total. We managed to cross the border fine and got issued our 90 day Singapore visa (even though we are only here for 3 days!). We got here late at night and pretty much went straight to bed when we arrived at the hotel. We got up early the next morning so we could get a whole day of sightseeing done. We set off on the underground system, which works amazingly well and is the cheapest way to see the city. We went to the colonial district first and saw the various buildings which we had left behind, most of which have now been changed into hotels! We walked past the famous Raffles but we didnt go in as we were a bit sweaty and thought they might refuse us entry! We stood and stared for a while though.

After this we walked to the business district and plodded around the famous highrise area of Singapore. It was amazing, they have managed to blend old and new really well and the city looks fantastic! After that we got back on the tube and went to Chinatown, which was the neatest Chinatown we have ever seen. We bought a couple of gifts and then carried on walking until we arrived in Little India, which is slightly less organised than the rest of Singapore, but possibly the most organised Indians we have seen! Singapore is amazing, its so clean and everything just works perfectly. The only problem we are having is that it is rather expensive, which is why we are not here for long.

After that we went back to catch our breath for a moment before we headed out in the evening to go on the Singapore Flyer, which is their version of the London Eye. We had a bit of a trek across the city, but we made it in time and it was well worth it! You go 165 metres up and you get to see the whole of Singapore. We went up at 6.30pm so we got to see the sun setting as well, it was just ace. The city is ever growing, with large construction sites everywhere, we reackon it will look very different in years to come! After that, we went to the harbour front and sat watched the skyscrapers light up after dusk. We went for dinner in a local food market, which is set in an old colonial market - very pretty. We had noodles, obviously!

Today we had a bit of a lie in as we are both exhausted from travelling and walking around the whole city the previous day. We got the underground to the tip of Singapore where you can either get a monorail or a cable car across to Sentosa island, which is basically a theme park come fake beach resort. We got the monorail in the end as it was the cheaper option. Very efficient indeed. The island itself was a bit strange, it was more like Center Parcs really. Fake beaches and fake trees with escalators instead of stairs and random music playing everywhere. It was slightly unnerving. All of the amusements cost a small fortune to partake in so we just walked around for a bit and went and sat on one of the fake beaches. They were trying to have fun bless them, but it was too organised and fake for that. We sat for a bit and tried to count the hundreds of boats which are moored in the bay. After that we got the Monorail back to Singapore and went to their famous shopping street - Orchard Road. It was amazing, I have never seen so many designer labels in one place - prada, gucci, louis vuitton, rolex, cartier, chanel, the list goes on...I have no idea where the normal people shop, we suspect the answer is: dont live in Singapore if you dont have money!!

We both really love Singapore, its a shame we cant stay longer but we have seen a lot in the 2 days we have been here. Tomorrow morning we are off to get the train back up to Kuala Lumpur, which is where we will be for the next 2 days!

Hope everyone is well,
Lots of Love
Chris and Alex xxx

We got an overnight train from Surat Thani, which is the main town on mainland Thailand where we arrived after getting the boat from Ko Samui. The train was only an hour late in the end and we boarded at 2am, after a 6 hour wait at the station. We arrived late the next day in Butterworth and checked out of Thailand and got our new visa for Malaysia. For some reason we only got given a 15 day visa from the last time we entered Thailand so we ended up having to pay 40 pounds each because we had overstayed by 3 days. Not the best news, but whats done is done now.

We got a boat from Butterworth across the river to George Town, on the island of Penang, where we only stayed one night. We wish we had stayed longer as it turned out there was lots to see and do, unfortunatly the day we chose to visit was a Sunday so most things were closed. We didnt really mind, we walked around the colonial district and down to the sea front, all of which are well preserved and really quite impressive. After that we got a bus to Penang hill where there is a funicular train which takes about 15 mins to reach the top. We had glorious plans to go up for sunset but when we got there all the tickets were sold out, the only ones for sale were for 7.30pm. So we waited around a bit and then popped up whilst the sun was setting (it sets really late here). The views were amazing, we got to see the whole of Penang and Butterworth at night. We stayed up there for about an hour before getting a cramped funicular back down the hill. We really enjoyed Penang, its just a shame we couldnt stay longer!

Onwards to Singapore!

Lots of Love,
Chris and Alex xxx