13 December Well that was unnecessarily stressful. On our way from Da Nang to Bangkok a text message popped up from Air Astana, who are flying us from Bangkok back to London via a stop in Astana. Change of schedule to our first flight: it’s going to Astana 4 hours later. Which means we’ll miss » » »

12 December 2018 I’ve had enough torrential rain. Enough walking on roads and dodging traffic. More than enough motorbikes. I’ve had enough difficult conversations. Enough ordering in restaurants by pointing, gesticulating and then hoping that what comes is what we wanted. Enough haggling or just resigning yourself to paying way over the odds. Enough uncertainty » » »

11 December 2018 We’ve had to give up our search for the last langur in our set of four. Should have been the easiest, but apparently it still hasn’t stopped raining in Da Nang and now landslides have blocked the road onto the Son Tra peninsula. So, no langur. We actually got some blue sky » » »

10 December 2018 It stopped raining at 8:45 this morning. Then as we left Da Nang at 9:00 it started again and it hasn’t stopped since, just varied between gentle and torrential. The smart attire in Hoi An is flip-flop and shorts. In places the streets are ankle-deep in water, so any shoes are just » » »

9 December 2018 We’ve been so lucky with the weather this trip. In the Philippines we could have arrived before or during the typhoon, but we arrived just after and so our plans were barely dented. Apart from that it was sun, sun, sun. In Phong Nha we were told that the caves are often » » »

8 December 2018 There is a village on the coast south-east of Hue called An Bang. It’s just another Vietnamese village, except for some reason an exceptional number of inhabitants moved to the U.S. after the war and began sending back money. The families used this money for building themselves splendid villa houses, so that » » »

7 December 2018 Today we genuinely took it easy. For breakfast we spurned our hotel and walked out to a street vendor for banh mi stuffed with pork and pate and egg and veggies, and her neighbouring vendor for iced Vietnamese coffee. The hotel staff were a little put out (and perhaps confused) that we » » »

6 December 2018 The Vietnamese football team just beat the Philippines, causing the bar where we were eating to erupt with cheers, and then the streets of Hue to be throng with vuvuzela-tooting fans hurtling around on motorbikes with the Vietnamese flag held like a banner by their pillion passengers. Apparently this victory was quite » » »

5 December 2018 The reason we “rested” yesterday was so we could go on a proper cave expedition today! We took on the 7km Paradise Cave trek. The first km of the cave is a show cave, but at the end of the show cave you go through a little gate and don your head » » »

4 December 2018 Well, we took it easy today. Sort of. We hung around the Phong Nha Farmstay until after lunch, then went out to look for the rare Hatinh Langurs that live in Phong Nha National Park. We spent a while chatting with our host, Ben, a solid Australian chap who moved out here » » »

3 December 2018 We’re completely quackers. I mean, our night bus arrived at 4am and really wasn’t the greatest night’s sleep anyway, which is why we decided not to do very much on our first day in Phong Nha. So I’m baffled as to how we ended up visiting Phong Nha cave later in the » » »

2 December 2018 How to be an English introvert abroad. When your homestay hosts tell you there is a charity soup kitchen at the local hospital today and asks if you’d like to go, think “there’s nothing I would like less than a couple of hours of incredibly uncomfortable social interactions with people I don’t » » »

1 December 2018 Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. We did a foolish thing, and then I cemented the deal with a bit of poor skill. Still, before I go on I should say: it’s nothing major, no real harm done. We rented a scooter from our guesthouse, because it’s what everyone in » » »

30 November 2018 This is kindof a round-up of two days in the area, paired with tomorrow’s post. So we’re staying in a village just outside Ninh Binh city at a homestay. It’s an interesting mixture. The family have used a plot in the village to build a five storey mini-hotel with nine rooms that » » »

29 November 2018 We did a smart thing. We left Cat Ba a day early and took an afternoon bus to Ninh Binh. But not before we got to see the Cat Ba langur! Although this hasn’t really been a mammal-watching trip, it was hard to resist this. The Cat Ba langurs are one of » » »

28 November 2018 FFS. You’ve created a little resort of bungalows in the middle of Cat Ba island. You’ve taken the trouble to provide air conditioning and hot water, and the bungalow is large and solidly built. So why provide literally no furniture other than a bed? There’s room for a bedside table, a desk » » »

27 November 2018 So here we are, sitting on a boat in the middle of Ha Long Bay in the black of night. The only other people aboard are the crew of two, and our guide Ba’a (or something like that, it seemed to be pronounced as “Ba” with a stutter on the “a”). We’ve » » »

26 November 2018 The guy at the pagoda really annoyed me. He came up to me with a tourism questionaire and saying that he was a teacher. So, yeah, I filled it in for him. Then he showed me a card that explained in English that he was helping the Red Cross collect money for » » »

25 November 2018 The French Quarter forms an interesting counterpoint to the parts of central Hanoi we’ve been exploring so far. The streets are straight, the pavements are wide, and most of the buildings are residential. This makes walking along a much easier and less insane proposition. It also makes the French Quarter very uninteresting. » » »