Hi All

Julie now is officially mortified…..From Phnom Penh I managed to find a trip down the Mekong river on the boat seen in the previous blog. The tour booked was pick up at hotel, 5 hour boat trip, night with B&B at a floating hotel, bus from Chau Doc visiting a temple (4hrs drive) To some other city for a night at a hotel B&B. Then a trip to the floating market and rice production and then the 4 hours by coach to Ho Chi Menh….tour ends. Sounds fantastic…..price $65 per head….. I think what great value, Vic and Julie think what has he signed us up for!!!!

Ok so we with 20 other people average age 19….yes we truly are back packers now.  

We loved the trip down the Mekong, I must be a boat person as I am always happiest on the water. From the boat you see general rural life, people working the rice paddies, fisherman who live and fish on the river all day, floating houses with fish farms underneath just spectacular.

We arrived at the floating hotel, ok so it’s not 5 star but the rooms seem comfortable. We went for a walk around Chau Doc and then crashed into bed. Little did we know that the bar and restaurant were above the rooms so constant foot-steps, furniture scraping the floor and music till the early hours of the morning.

The next day they took us by boat to a village then a rice producer, and finally to a place where they make rice paper and from that noodles.

Callum turning to Buddhism

Sporting a new dress

Our luxury accommodation for a night…in the next town cant remember the name

Street that our luxury accommodation is on.  We actually thought we had taken a wrong turn

Floating market. Hundreds of traders selling mainly fruit

Floating market

Street life

Mini bar

Making rice paper – exported all over the world.

Smiling Buddha at another Temple somewhere our tour took us to

Jessica has found the light

In the lotus flower garden

Street food – No not quite adventurous enough.  Think they are either spiders or crickets

A jewellers in the same town – says it all..

Cu chi tunnels

These were the tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the American war…..

Ok so most people are Cal and Jessica’s size. The Americans countered this by getting Indonesian troops who were call “tunnel rats” to try flush the Viet Cong out. The tunnels go down 30 M with hospitals cooking facilities etc. When the tunnel rats entered they set up booby traps for them. All part of guerrilla war fare

These tunnels they made40%  wider so tourist can go through. The tunnel system here was 250 Km long

Vietnamese hat

Not sure whether these puppies are for sale or it is the local delicacy.

Hoi An, a wonderful change.  This town used to be the main port of the country.  Untouched from the war

Ho An has a large French influence and many of the buildings in Ho An were untouched by the war

The ‘said’ scooter.  Not so smiley the next day!!!

We had to find a beach, but was too hot to walk on, the tub is a fishing boat.  Hundreds of them go out every day.

Many of the boat refugees used these to escape where later they were picked up by ships.

Very local scene

From Ho An we went to Hanoi and then to Hawlong bay to take a junk for 3 days.

It was fantastic and we will try update those photos when we in the UK

At the moment we are in Dubai airport, just about to fly back to the UK at 3am!

We spent 2 days with our friends Danie and Tamsin, they came to the Emirates 3 years ago and are doing really well. It was great catching up and the kids had friends for 2 days swimming etc