One day on the terrible roads around Dalat in the Central Highlands of Vietnam proved enough for us so we left the city earlier than expected bound for Saigon on a sleeper bus. All roads in this part of Vietnam are terrible, even the new road to the city, which is so new it's not finished yet.
Saigon was, as expected, pretty chaotic, with clogged streets and people everywhere. We visited the War Remnants Museum, until recently known as the Museum of American and Chinese War Crimes, which was naturally not that impartial but interesting nonetheless.
Sorry folks, the secret is out....Santa rides a bike...
You have to admire the ingenuity/courage/craziness.....
Sofa so good......geddit?
Elsewhere in the city is a great clothes market, if you can stand the constant arm-grabbing and shouting from the stall-holders. We found it best to go early in the morning after a good nights sleep and a decent breakfast. That way the harrassment and haggling can be quite fun for a while. Also required is an iron resolve about what you want to buy, how much you want to spend and to be safe in the knowledge that you don't really need any of it anyway. Any transaction starts with an outrageously high starting bid which you counter with a ridiculously low counter-offer. After a lot of sneering and/or laughter the seller spends half a minute with a random price generator, aka a calculator, and hands it over for you to see the next offer. It is important to use the RPG and to show sufficient amounts of thought and concentration otherwise your next offer is unlikely to be taken seriously. Once you have reached your limit the seller will say you are the first customer of the day therefore will bring luck and should pay more. Next he will try to force the RPG into your hand for one last bid until you turn away and start to walk off and then suddenly he will give in...
We had met Tom and Rachel from the UK on the bus to Saigon and spent three evenings with them in Saigon at a Bia Hoi place, bascially a pavement bar with fresh beer randomly made to a Czech receipe and brewed without any preservatives. It goes off in about 24 hours so it's sold straight from the keg for about 30p a litre....
From Saigon we took a bus across the border into Cambodia to Phnom Penh, where we met up with Jeroen and Tamara from Luang Prabang for a visit to the Killing Fields memorial site and Pol Pot's one-time security HQ. Both pretty harrowing places and not exactly a fun day out but very much worth seeing, especially as it is fairly recent history...
For some light relief we headed south to Sihanoukville and specifically a bamboo hut on Otres Beach where we found Joe and Laura from Luang Prabang
and Tom and Rachel from Saigon
in time for Christmas on the beach. We all had a nostalgic 30 seconds where we missed being cold, Christmas Day in front of the fire and roast turkey for lunch before slapping on the factor 30 and shifting the sunlounger under a palm tree....
Sarah on Christmas Day...
And getting to grips with the local wildlife...
The view up the beach.....
We had a morning's snorkelling with Frogman Diving, a beachside outfit owned and run by a chain-smoking hard-drinking French navy diver called Eric. Next door was our culinary home for the festive period, a restaurant run by a chain-smoking, hard-drinking Spaniard called Spanish Armada (we don't know his real name.)
SA served up a whole char-grilled barracuda for six of us for Christmas lunch....
Through sheer laziness we failed to move from the beach for about 10 days until we were forced to by our impending flight from Bangkok to Australia. We took a by-now expected stressful journey across the Thai border to Trat, where we spectacularly poisoned ourselves on fish curry at a street party. It was our own stupid fault for ignoring our usual rules of not eating food not freshly cooked and meant we in bed by 8.30pm on New Year's Eve in Bangkok...
We had recovered enough to catch our flight from Bangkok to Singapore, then another from Singapore to Darwin and another from Darwin to Cairns where we officially arrived in Australia and checked into our 24-hour party drink-till-you-drop backpackers dorm where we were asleep by 8pm...again..
The following day was the first we both started to feel better and we took our trip to the Great Barrier Reef on a small katamaran and as it turned out, with a party of Koreans. The Koreans were mostly seasick and spent the day mostly lying down in bunks so we had the reef, and their lunch, mostly to ourselves. The snorkelling and diving were amazing and our list of creatures was extended by sharks, turtles, rays and millions of colourful fish...
Heading south the following day we arrived at Port Hinchinbrook to stay with Tony, the first of our Couchsurfing hosts. For those unfamiliar, www.couchsurfing.org should reveal all. Tony welcomed us into his great home and introduced us to the delights of the Mahi Mahi fish, happy hour at the pub, his friends and his boat....
Townsville next to see old friends Mick and Barbara, who generally spoiled us rotten and made sure we don't have to eat for the next month, and Magnetic Island just off the coast...
Really wide river...no camera tricks here.....
Out in the bush...
Onwards to Rockhampton via the overnight Greyhound bus. This is just like a day bus, very uncomfortable, too hot then too cold, but with the added bonus of taking all night. Fortunately we were staying with Jaqs another CS host, who like Tony before and all the later hosts, was like staying with an old friend. Incidentally Rockhampton is the beef capital of Australia. Little known fact there for you all.
Also our first koala sighting....
In Hervey Bay we were hosted by Harry and Linda along with five other travellers. We had a very entertaining evening of multi-national cuisine...
21st century backpacking.....
And Fraser Island...
Lake Mackenzie in the middle of the island....
Dog-walking down under....
Working our way towards Sydney we stopped in Brisbane for a couple of days and then Newcastle with Oce and Sarah for some New South Wales beach time where you can actually get in the sea. Tropical Queensland at this time of year is a favourite with lots of jellyfish and in some places, hungry sharks, which makes the sea off limits.
Brisbane's city beach....
We stayed with Sue and Steve just south of Sydney long enough to get some more body-boarding in and a vain attempt at surfing. I will concede it is slightly harder than it looks, quite a lot of practice is required and I am not a natural.
Turning inland we took the train to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney where we watched it rain and rain and hail and rain so we went to the cinema. Heading further west to Canowindra next and then south to Melbourne before leaving for New Zealand mid-Feb. Will update soon....ish.
