Easy Riders

This will definitely go down as one of our most memorable experiences, of Vietnam, and the whole trip.

We spent 4 days on the back of motorbike with a couple of 'Easy Riders' exploring the Central Highlands and down to Saigon. There is a group of about 60 guys in Dalat who call themselves the Easy Riders and take tourists on day trips or longer (some as long as 3 weeks) around the Central Highlands and anywhere else they might want to go! There are also a lot of 'fake' Easy Riders around too - several of whom approached us in Nha Trang and Dalat - how you tell the difference I am not sure, as all carry books of recommendations from other tourists with them. The real Easy Riders seem to have badges and business cards....

Our two Riders - Mr Chung and Mr Binh - one from the North and one from South Vietnam, took us to family business, waterfalls, minority villages (where the kids just loved having their photos taken!), we tasted wild boar, wild deer, barbequed goat. We rode on the back of an elephant, explored the Cu Chi tunnels and the Ho Chi Minh trail and survived the Saigon traffic. It was a very different insight into Vietnam, into the extreme poverty of the minority tribes, and the resourcefulness of the people in using and reusing the resources around them - we could learn a thing or two about recycling here. People were happy to see us, kids yelling 'hello' as we rode by, and factory workers happy to show us around their work. We stayed in small towns, and in one case in the rebuilt summer palace of the last emperor at Lak Lake. Amazing. Two days later and we are still trying to take it all in.

Karaoke and floating bars, Nha Trang

We opted for a train ride to beachside Nha Trang rather than the 12 hour overnight bus trip we'd already paid for - losing a night's sleep for the sake of a few dollars didn't really seem worth it!

Travelling by day meant we could watch rice fields and countryside change as we moved further south, and as the only westerners in our train carriage we provided a source of amusement as we realised why most of the other travellers had turned away the food provided by the train company... over cooked rice and unrecognisable meat and veg. Some of our fellow travellers took pity on us and passed us fruit and rice crackers to keep us going!

We only had a day in Nha Trang, and were persuaded by the hotel reception to take a boat trip around the islands. While being herded to the port Rick bumped into an ex-Logica colleague and friend and his girlfriend, so they spent the rest of the day catching up on the last 7 years!

The boat trip was memorable not just for bumping into old friends, or the snorkelling, or even the islands we visited, but for the guide. He practically forced beers into our hands as soon as we were on board, enjoyed karaoke (with live band) so much that no one else had to get up and embarrass themselves, and launched himself into the sea and the floating bar with great enthusiasm - insisting with drink the 'minging' wine (his description) as we floated by in rubber rings.

Really Cooking in Hoi An

A planned 2 day stop stretched into 4 in Hoi An, and could easily have been longer if we weren't at the end of our travels. The old town is a beautiful place to wander around (if you can block the multitude of tourist-facing shops and restaurants from your mind), and has a very laid back feel. That, combined with a nice hotel complete with pool and air con(for the grand price of $10!) , meant we were more than happy to hang out and take life at a easier pace for a couple of days.

Hoi An is also the place in Vietnam to get tailor made clothes, which we duly did - with weddings and job hunting in mind. Although 5 months on the road wearing the same rags really didn't put me in a suitable frame of mind for choosing styles, materials and all that jazz, so goodness knows what we will think of them when we get home.

We'd been enjoying Vietnamese food so much we decided to take a cooking class at the Red Bridge restaurant, in a beautiful setting by the river, with a tour of the market to spot the crucial ingredients...It was good fun, and we look forward to testing the recipes out on you all when we get home!

The My Son ruins, are Vietnam's most ancient monument - nearly swallowed by the jungle - and very beautiful - but our trip through a tour agency did not give us much time to appreciate them as our guide rushed the group around in the heat of the day. But what else did we expect from a $2 tour?

Thu much fun in Hue

From the hills of Sapa via a few hours in hectic Hanoi and two nights sleeping on trains we are now in Hue, in Central Vietnam, on the Perfume River, and the former capital of the Nguyen dynasty.

We've toured the city by bike, the surrounds by motorbike (sitting on the back of two bikes taking us through tiny villages and visiting pagodas, witnessing buddhist rituals, avoiding incense drying on the paved roads) and the restaurants by foot! Opposite our little hotel is the Cafe on Thu Wheels - run by a real character called Thu, who is quite the business woman, and who has quite a vocabulary of cockney phrases (some of which have been passed on to our motorbike guide who had an obsession with Bob Marley).

We've had dinner in a restaurant run by a deaf mute and masssages in a school for the blind. The massage place was recommended by a random encounter with a tour guide on a train, but it is obviously not somewhere that they receive tourists very often - and after being punched and pummelled we were given a private tour of the facilities by the Director of the insitution, translated by the moto driver who had taken us there (and who had learnt his English in the army). It was one of those bizzarre, and heart-warming moments I'll never forget.