back home

Well we're back from our adventures. Vietnam is a lovely place with some seriously impressive scenery, lovely people and interesting cuisine!

The tour we went on was spot on, we covered a lot of ground but didn't feel herded around. it would have been nice to spend a little more time in some of the places but then again when you only have 2 weeks you have to make some concessions! there were six of us on the tour and everyone was nice and friendly. the tour leader was excellent and we had a good mix of free time and group time.

some of the highlights -

Ho Chi Minh City - trying to cross the road in the place is like Russian roulette, you have to simply walk slowly and hope that the motorbikes just weave round you. scary stuff. On the request of one of the group we went to a restaurant where they served "weird shit" ( as well as normal food), at which some of the group tried the various odd "I'm a celebrity" style food, including silk worm which were brought to the table still wriggling and then fried in front of us - nice! I drew the line at food that is still alive when it comes to the table but I did taste a little bit of rat ("tastes like chicken") and scorpion (tastes like plastic). Paul was unimpressed as once I gave it a go the testosterone rules meant he couldn't dip out ha ha!

We visited the Chi Chi tunnels plus the war museums and got a good idea of the the sheer ingenuity and resilience of the people during the Amercian War. we had to smile at the style of some of the museums, where they seem to collect a load of random objects, some with seriously tenuous links, and place them in no seemingly logical order with very little explanation! All very interesting but you really have to fill in the information gaps yourself!

Hoi An and Hue - we flew up to here from Ho Chi Minh and spent a couple of days. the weather took a turn for the worse and there were some serious floods which made for excellent photographs but did impact on our plans a little - but didn't cause too many problems. we were lucky that we had one lovely day in Hoi An which we enjoyed on the beach. Hoi An is a mecca for tailoring so I got some boots and a suit made.

Night train from Hue to Hanoi - that was an experience! The floods meant that we were delayed early on in the journey, but we had no idea how long the delay may be and our tour leader warned that she had known delays of up to 24 hours! so we conformed to tourist stereotype and got drunk in the bar carriage! In actual fact we were only 5 hours delayed and arrived mid morning on the next day, shattered (i.e. hungover) but ok!

Halong Bay was an amazing experience, journeying on a Junk Boat into the bay, looking at the beautiful and haunting scenery and watching the sunset. then spending the night on the boat eating wonderful food prepared in such a tiny little galley. a real highlight.

Hanoi was hectic and equally as scary as Saigon on the road crossing elements. We visited the sights, paid our respects to Uncle Ho, checked out the various eateries and tried to photograph people carrying their entire family on one moped or cycling with hundreds of ceramic pots precariously balanced around them.

We then left the tour and headed our on our own to the mountains in the north, to a place half an hour outside Sapa - the Topas Ecolodge. we were expecting very cold weather as all the guides and people you meet warn you its chilly but we were SO lucky and the weather and views were fantastic. The lodge was simple and calm, and the the views were spectacular. Sitting out looking at the mountains in varying shades of blue was for me the best part of the whole trip. we went on a couple of treks and met some of the local people, then headed back on the night train again to hanoi before heading home (don't ask me about the flight back, lets just say I'm now well acquainted with the sick bags on Cathay Pacific!)


So, in all a great trip, not as relaxed as the one last year, but definitely filled with sights, sounds, tastes and great memories. Vietnam is a great country, and the people are truly welcoming.



so, back to work - new one that is, which seems to be fine, I'm responsible for local employees in the Middle East, Europe, Russia and Africa, which means various people dotted around but in the main factories in Italy, Holland , Aberdeen and Gloucestershire. Will be a challenge but hopefully one I can handle this time!

The next travel challenge is trying to get our heads around what there is to see and do in New Zealand. It's almost a case of information and option overload! So I'm hoping that people who have already been will email/leave messages with their top 3 places they recommend...... ;-) We leave on the 27th Dec for 4 weeks, probably not enough looking at all there is to do, but we'll fit in as much as we can, along with some chilled out time maybe!