(SORRY BUT HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THE PHOTO UPLOADER SO WE APPOLOGISE FOR THE LACK OF AND REPEAT OF PICS!) Where do we start? Seems a long time, or at least one hell of a distance ago when all this happened! Here we go... Leaving our long stay in Surabaya airport we flew over to the South East Indonesian part of Borneo arriving in Balikpapan. Quick collection of our bags then jumped in the taxi off to find a cheap motel. However searching around for places to stay we found nothing of any value. Either cheap but a complete dump (no way [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Padang we flew down to Java on a nice quick 2 hour flight in to the Capital Jakarta, easily saving ourselves a 35-45 hour bus journey... Quick exit off the plane through the airport to the local taxi rank we head then in to the city and main back packer strip Jalan Jaksa Road. As we turned up we noticed straight away it was nothing like Bangkok (we thought they might of been similar). No where near as developed and a lot more run down. Yes it has its big buildings and stuff but none of the glam! Anyhow checked [View Full Entry]

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DUMAI Jumping on what was meant to be a boat but more like a floating scrap yard we headed over to Dumai Indonesia for the 6th leg of the trip 3 hours after we were meant to have left! Not really knowing what was ahead of us as this was off the main back packer routes. Arriving in Dumai we were greeted by a local immigration officer who was quite nice and helpful, a bit too nice… He took us to a mini van and said we had a free ride to the town where we could catch our on going [View Full Entry]

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After sort of recovering from the long days of partying we headed off early morning around 6am to catch the early ferry. Thinking we were on the fast catamaran we ended up on possibly the slowest boat in SE Asia, a car ferry no less. Anyhow a few hours later arrived in Surathani and jumped on a link bus to the town centre which we would then exchange to go on our main ‘VIP’ bus to Malaysia…or so we thought…!! Got into town we waited for an hour so then got picked up by a little minibus and off we went….or [View Full Entry]

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BANGKOK So we arrived in Bangkok after a 12-ish hour bus journey to be dropped in the middle of a road (literally the middle of the road!) but luckily right next to the backpacker area. Mangaged to find a nice, but quite expensive room for the night and had a wonder around the area.. Love at first sight!!! It reminded us of a little Asian Glastonbury festival! lots of stalls selling great clothes, hippy things, handmade shoes, lanterns.. the works!!! And that was just in our little lane.. KHAO SAN ROAD Khao San road, the famous farang (foreigner) territory was twic [View Full Entry]

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So.. arrived in Phnom Penh after a long, cramped mini bus journey from Laos, and after being dropped off in the 'backpacker' area Gareth scouted round for rooms... all very very cheap at $2+ per room per night but we decided to stay somewhere a little nicer after having stayed in a bamboo hut with no electricity for a week! We ended up at a very nice budget hotel owned by a Camboian Aussie chap near the river and about 1km walk from all the riverside action. Unfortunately Gareth was again summouned to do some more design work so the first [View Full Entry]

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Right then…. Vientiane We left the annoyance and pigs of Hanoi (Viet-scam) and jumped on the over night bus to Laos. We were warned that this was going to be an unpleasant 25hr long ride but apart from the 4 hour wait at the border it was quite ok, and only took 20hrs!!!!! Arriving in Vientiane (the Capital of Laos) we jumped on a TukTuk (a pickup with seats in the back, their version of a taxi!) to the centre to try and find a cheap hotel. On the way we noticed the Laos people actually had rules to the road [View Full Entry]

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WEEK 4 After leaving the luxury of the 5* New World Hotel we found out that our bus to Mui Ne had been cancelled and therefore had to choose whether to get a later bus or write it off.. So after much deliberation (arguing) and the fact that the tour agent managed to get us a bus to Dalat that was leaving in 15mins we decided to go straight to Dalat. DALAT So we left the hustle and bustle of Saigon for a 7/8 hour bus journey to the mountains. Knowing that we had only had 8days until our visa ran [View Full Entry]

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So far... HO CHI MINH CITY WEEK 1: got to HCMC, went to the National Musuem and spent some time with the Asian side of the family, goin out for gorgeous meals, but family duty over-ruled and we didnt have much time to do anything else..!! MEKONG DELTA WEEK 2: headed out on a Mekong Delta 2day tour, visting a Coconut candy factory, and travelled along the river through the canals etc. We stayed the first night just outside Can Tho with a Vietnamese family (incedently our boat diver the following day) and learnt how to make spring rolls and had [View Full Entry]

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