Thailand - Koh Phi Phi

At last we found a place worthy of the lofty title 'paradise' - Koh Phi Phi Don. Although it was a really long way to travel from Laos, it was well worth the effort - especially as our trip is almost over now (eek!). Devastated by the Tsunami in 2004, it has quickly been cleaned up. Despite some over-development, it's still possible to find a quiet and unspoiled spot. We were away from the hoardes on Long Beach; it was incredible.

I did a one-day snorkel trip and swam with huge shoals of brightly coloured tropical fish, jellyfish, seasnakes and even sharks. Yup, I was a little wary of the sharks at first but eventually I was chasing a few of them (I had fins on which always helps!). They are amazing to watch and rather graceful too.

Loas - Luang Prabang + Vang Vieng

We went on an Elephant Trek near Luang Prabang and I got to sit and steer from the (very scratchy) head. It was good fun. Later on we did some shopping in the stunning night market. It's a truly wonderful town and one of Lizzy's favourites in the world.

Next up we hit Vang Vieng and went 'tubing'. This involves floating down the stunning river in a tracter inner tube, and stopping at bars along the way for (usually alcoholic) refreshment. After some Dutch courage you can then ride huge waterslides and rope swings into the river. Lizzy was the first of the day down the waterslide and made quite an impression on both herself and all watching. My attempt created an even bigger wave.

However, all the fun/bad food in this town left Lizzy rather sick and thus we had a few rather dismal days of being fed up, tired, ill and wanting to go home. Eventually we settled on heading to Koh Phi Phi, Thailand, for a few days before heading home.....

Laos

We had flights booked to Bangkok from Hanoi but of course all hell broke loose there and we were forced to divert to Laos instead....which was our original plan anyway !

And what a nice place it's been too.Very little traffic or hassle. Stunning mountains.So relaxed I've (almost)forgotten what stress is.Bliss.We arrived in sleepy capital Vientianne and chilled by the river, read some books and ate lots of nice French food.Next up, reality was biting, and we had a very trying 10.5 hour bus ride north through mountains (incredible scenery though) on awful roads to Luang Prabang only to be told on arrival that the hotel we had booked was full.Stress memory returned quickly! However we quickly relaxed after getting another room and the next day wandered this lovely UNESCO town in a relaxed haze of bliss.Its where the Mekong and another less memorably named river meet.We booked an Elephant trek,made some friends and wandered around.I got to watch Arsenal beat Chelsea scumbags away.Heaven !

Hanoi + Sapa - Northern Vietnam

High up in the mountains of Northern Vietnam,very close to China and with a totally different tribal culture, Sapa was incredibly beautiful. We spent a few very happy days trekking and biking,and meeting the wonderful H Mong and Azare Tribal people. We also had the best pasta I've ever eaten -hand rolled fettuccine with foraged Mountain Mushrooms.Yum! Needless to say the likes of which would be super expensive at home.

It was a relief to be in the cool mountain air and away from the very hectic Hanoi city where we had previously spent a whirlwind 4 days,most of which with my old mate Kate who now lives there.During our stay we saw the James Bond movie (which was good... but for me was lacking Eva Green),and went to an International Music Festival which actually had better food than music ....but was great fun anyway. The daily assault by literally millions of mopeds wore me down though, along with battling crooked taxi drivers.Still the amazing French restaurants were some compensation and we ate very well indeed.

Hoi An

Hoi An (in the middle of coastal Vietnam) was simply stunning. Relaxed,historic,great food and very romantic. Plus full of amazing + cheap taylors.Needless to say we got several pairs of trousers and a jacket made up. I could have stayed longer than the 4 days we did.
Only downer was watching Arsenal get beaten. Still we were in a beautiful old wooden bar with top tunes, dancing travellers and great company ....which of course is better than the usual lonely and sticky pubs I ve watched many an Arsenal defeat in at home.

Vietnam

We arrived in Ho Chi Min City (Saigon is what everyone actually still calls it though) after a harsh 13 hour bus ride from Cambodia. It was very clear straight away that Vietnam is much more developed and richer than Cambodia and the women have a very determined sense of chic... which includes a surgical style facemask. Yes indeed they all seem to want white skin so badly that the sun is kept off their faces by these fashionable and colourful masks - its very bizarre to see !
We went to the War Museum and I learnt how terrible Agent Orange was, and how brutal the after effects are, amongst lots of other grizzly facts about what they call, the American War. After that we needed a drink and of course Lizzy was just about able to remember where the best Cocktail Bar in town was - on top of a roof terrace of a posh hotel over looking the city called Saigon Saigon.Nice. I must also mention that the number of mopeds has to be seen to be believed - crazy and not a little scary when you're amongst it !

Next up was the picturesque hill station of Dalat.Up in the mountains and rather colder than we had been used to, this charming place is a bit like the Alps in Spring. We couldn't resist the Easy Rdiers Bike Tour of the area and spent a wonderful day learning about the countryside's ways and sights with Jean and Ting our lovely guides. We saw silk worms making silk and then the factory where the people finish the job. We visited flower farms , coffee plantations , a huge Pagaoda (a Buddist Temple) and learnt so much about Vietnam, its history and culture on our trip on the back of these mean machines with these incredibly gentle and warm hosts.

Kampot and Kep

We went to the South coast in Cambodia for several wonderful days and were lucky enough to sample the famous Kep Crab from the Crab Market as well as explore the very chilled Kampot.I think that Cambodia is one of the most incredible places we have been (which is not what I was expecting) - the people are SO much fun, the history is tragic and its so poor ....but nonetheless very inspiring. We also met some wonderful people and it was really nice being in a nice group of fellow travellers again - this part of the world has been much more sociable for us than most of Indonesia! Amongst these we met lovely couple - a Arsenal fan called Jeremy (!) from new Zealand via London and his girlfriend Helen.

Obama !

OBAMA ! We watched the incredible scenes on CNN this morning (we are in Kampot, on the coast of Cambodia) and I must admit to shedding a joyful tear or three. Let"s hope the optomism is well founded - but to be honest it simply couldnt be any worse than what Bush has put us through. But for Cambodians it seems to have little significance as it may not affect their daily lives - especially in this one-party country.

Malaysia,Cambodian Temples and Pol Pot

Í' m a bit behind with this blog so please forgive me not posting anything about our 4 day return to Malaysia - this time the Peninsular part.In a nutshell .... Melaka was great with nice Portuguese colonial buildings (similar to Cochin in India) and KL wasn't so interesting although the Petronus Towers were very impressive indeed. I ll post some pictures soon.










We are in Cambodia at the moment. The temples of Angkor Wat were incredible - absolutely stunning. The area is vast and on the 3rd day of temple hunting we drove for over an hour from Siem Reap to see a very cool one with some really magic carvings. The more famous temples such as Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom are very nice too plus the one they filmed Tomb Raider 1 in - Ta Promh. The jungle has grown into the temple and its very atmospheric!

We had some good party action at the Angkor What? Bar(oh what a pun!) on Halloween. Siem Reap is lots of fun with party action, bars and great food in a small area. But the very harsh realities of Cambodia are never far away...









The history is terribly depressing - we went to Pol Pot"s torture chambers today in the capital Phnom Penh and then to the Killing Fields. Everywhere in both cities there are amputees from landmines begging- its heartbreaking and often they are teenagers. Incredibly despite all that the people are very charming indeed - the nicest we have met anywhere, I think. They smile and laugh and are lots of fun. There are very few older people - Pol Pot killed about 2 million people 1975-1979 so the Cambodian population is very young.

Lizzy and I have sponsored a Education Youth Project for Street Kids by buying a brick for the building here in Phnom Penh. Read about it here if you can.......

http://www.friends-international.org/projects.html#mithsamlanh
http://www.friends-international.org/BuyBrickOnline.html

Bali Eco Bike trip

We needed to get back to Bali (for the 3rd time!) to fly to Peninsular Malaysia and had several days in Ubud again.We took a really fun Eco Mountain Bike Tour of the countryside (almost all downhill!) and saw lots of cool sights with lots of fun people.

These dudes are harvesting rice in 30 degree heat.Nuff respect.

Volcanos

We left Malang at 1.30 am(eek) to head to an active volcano - Mount Bromo in East Java. We arrived in time for sunrise and were gradually able to see its smoking cones.For the first time since leaving the UK we were cold and it felt good ! Next we headed into the stunning Caldera and were able to ride horses up the side of the volcano.The view was so spectacular I got a bit overwhelmed and admitted to Lizzy I was having a "moment". The smell of the sulphur was not so good (hence the masks) and Lizzy's cough wasn't helped much but despite this we were both loving every second of it !

We wandered around a stunning Hindu temple at the base of Bromo too





















The 2nd volcano was Ijen about 7 hours east and this was a hard 2 hour trek to the top.Lots of men mine, then carry 80kg of sulphur (used for cosmetics) down the volcano twice a day for 50 pence a go.Hardcore ! The view was once again stunning and after such a hard slog to get up it was even more rewarding.

Its safe to say these 2 volcano's were the most incredible moment of the trip yet for both of us and we were both surprises how much we got out of this part of our trip.It goes to show that you can never predict which places you will enjoy the most AND that Lonely Planet (great thought it is) doesn't always get it right.

Malang

We finally left Yojya for Malang at 3am after the 1.30 am train was late and headed east across rice paddies and amongst snoring passengers in the "Executive"class train which really wasn't so posh ! Poor Lizzy has a cough + cold so after one night in a 70's fleapit we hit the upgrade button and now are in a wonderful place that is a world apart and full of art and antiques.

Java - Yogyakarta

And so after another brief stop in Kuta (Bali), we arrived in the charming town of Yogyakarta. Perhaps for the first time on the trip I was struck by the poverty around us and there were some very under-employed and struggling people everywhere you look.However it's also apparently the cultural capital of this very crowded and over-whelmingly Islamic island and we had a great time - we were also struck by the very friendly locals.Almost straight away we met this lovely Bajak rider/driver who took us to the Sultans Palace. The driver Guillormo is 62 and is still pedaling around this very,very hot city all day looking for work-it was heart breaking to discover we were his first fare for 4 days.His bike was poignantly labeled with "The Struggle of my Life" on the front and he was very proud to tell us its seat was slightly wider than most and that he was never grumpy with his clients.He was fluent in French and English whilst clearly having learnt these on the job with no formal schooling.When we later couldn't find him and took another Bejak I wanted to try driving and was surprised to find they don't have a free wheel - so in an already tough job,there is no prospect of free wheeling and relaxing when going down hill !





After one 4.30 am start to fly here,we repeated this crazy feat of getting up too early and thus caught the 6am opening of Borobador.This is a UNESCO world heritage site Buddhist Monument was very impressive and our wonderful guide really brought it to life.

The Gili Isles + Lombok

We left Ubud rather sooner than we would have liked. This was because but the much hyped Gili Islands were calling so we decided to take the fast boat there and see what all the fuss is about.

The fast boat was incredibly fast and made for an hour and a quarter of white knuckle riding across some pretty hefty waves with the boat jumping completely out of the water and crashing down again.At one point the engine failed whilst the wave next to us was so high it was above to top of the boat ! After that heartstoping moment we were off again and arrived safe if rather shaken.

We spent 5 nights on Gili Trawangen (there are 3 of the Gili Isles and this is the biggest with most nightlife) and watched a lot of films,football and did a lot of snorkeling. It was good fun and the party vibe was ever present but neither of us really are proper beach bums so eventually we got a craving to move on.We found the Gilis rather over hyped and dirty which is a shame as they are very pretty indeed and there is no motorised transport - only push bikes and donkey carts ! We chilled out so much it started to sap our energy in a strange way.

So now we are in Sengiggi in Lombok which is a charming if quiet seaside town. We rented a bike again and had fun zipping along the very scenic coastal road. The boat ride here was much easier too!

Ubud

Next up was the centre of Balinese art and culture - Ubud.Its a stunningly beautiful place with so many statues,carvings and art galleries.The Dutch started this trend back when they were in charge and the locals have carried it on ...and some ! The vibe is very relaxed and friendly and we were very happy to explore the area for a few days and lounge around in our lovely hotel. Again we explored the area on a moped and took in some scenic rice padi fields and temples.

The most interesting thing we saw was a cremation where 2 old people were set alight a wonderful ceremony with dancing,music,art and colourful costumes.It was a fascinating insight into a side of Bali that is very far removed from what we had seen in the glamorous and chic Semiyak a few days before.Too bad that a few tourists were shamelessly poking camcorders right into the thick of the action rather than keep a discrete distance.A large procession preceded the burning and it was all rather exciting.Not to mention damn hot !