Sa Pa, Vietnam

Sapa - high place near China. Cold.

Hill tribes people - photogenic but worse than flys, and oh so smug. No, I not buy from you. I dont need a crappy hat! Apparently the harvest is over so they have nothing better to do than descend on tourists like vultures. Hello, money? No.

Peter and Helena, a British-French husband-wife, who, like us, delighted in flouting tours and taking ourselves around the area on motorbikes. The beauty of a place exists without a pricey tour group and greedy guide, I shit you not. We had a ball.

Terraced rice paddies in the clouds

This bridge was more rickety than anticipated, missing boards, swinginess, woaah, what a thrill! We went 100km this day.

Take that harsh conditions, a poncho for all three of us!

This was the view we emerged from the cloud to see. We free wheeled silently in neutral for 18.6km down the windy road shown below. Breathtaking. The highest peak in Vietnam (3160m) left its wispy hat on.

Ninh Binh, Vietnam

Stunning scenery led to a short stay in Ninh Binh, 1hr South on Hanoi, visiting the caves nearby.

We had an awesome game of cards and hot tea with a Vietnamese couple while we waited for the rain. They managed to teach us the rules without using English. Every time you play a card you need to grunt.

Read: How to look casual while rowing a boat

Hue, Vietnam

4 hours to the north in Hue (an ex capital city) the flooding was no better. Our boat trip was canceled - go figure. We took motorcycle guides around, which turned out a better method of seeing all the elaborate and massive tombs of former Kings, and citadels etc.

The rain was quite depressing, so we bloody well got on bikes and ponchos and ventured forth, riding through knee deep flood water to an isolated Japanese bridge. My chain derailed 5 times before I realised it was barely linked together anymore, but someone at our destination did not hesitate to repair it for a dollar.

Our motorcycle guides

Hoi An, Vietnam

Hoi An, halfway up the coast of Vietnam, is a beautiful ancient city, world heritage listed, with lots of Chinese and Japanese influence. It is famous for tailoring, and we had some quality stuff made for when we reinvent ourselves in London town.

It rained here. A lot. We got really bad colds and spent much time in our hotel. But it flooded something spectacular, 2 blocks each side of the river were knee-waist deep in water.

Nha Trang, Vietnam

We got the impression from our guide book that Nha Trang would be sleazy and commercial, but it really wasn't. Had a lot of fun here, and met some good people.

I had my first recreational dives, 2 for $40. Explored some underwater caves and terrain that was easily as good as Ko Tao, and managed to keep up fine with the 2 other guys I was with who were both dive masters. Megan did a 'try a dive' and went 6m under with a personal guide.

Not many freezers around means ice is always being delivered, then chopped up to put in drinks. It seems all ice is perfectly fine here, made from filtered water.

*Cringe* Me doing a haka. I had no choice, they had every nationality on the booz cruise up to perform a song. What else could I do?

After everone else had humilated themselves in the name of entertainment especially. See below - our personal on board band with plastic barrel drum kit. We also had a floating red wine bar, snorkelling, an aquarium, and the booz flowed freely between 10am and midnight, oh dear. We had an unscheduled extra day in Nha Trang after this.

Da Lat, Vietnam

I think everybody that goes to Dalat has this picture, true, maybe not with Megan in it. We took a 'gravity-coaster' (like a luge on tracks) down to this, and Megan had so much fun we walked up and repeated.

Adding to the romance: A wet swan. We peddled this beast around a lake in the Valley of Love. You could definitely feel the love as we took shelter under a branch when the rain set in at our furtherest point from the jetty.

Well, what can I say- these two trouble makers, Easy Rider motorcycle guides, taught us a few things about their specific brand of romance. Including tricks with toothpicks, relating married life to steamed rice, and showing us their dodgy cell phone videos - need I say more. Brilliant guides.

Learning how silk is made was a highlight. Basically every strand of silk is just a perfectly unwound cocoon. Amd when its unwound, you eat the caterpillar! Tastes like a nut.

Most of Magrittes work is cabbage, in my opinion.

Great effort up a big mountain, the highest in the central highlands of Nam. Its cold up here, especially when on the way down you get drenched by intense monsoon rain at 2000m altitude, wearing only singlet, shorts, raincoat, then bike back 15 ks to the hotel adding the wind chill factor. The rain is about 30 minutes away in this pic. Great day though, loved the climb, crazy 360 degree views.

Mui Ne, Vietnam

Mui Ne - a holiday from your holiday sort of destination. A hot beach surrounded with breathtaking day trip style stuff. Its all shown below.
Top of a mountain. We rode gonallas up for 4$, only to arrive at noisy bloody construction sights and litter. Typical bloody Asia. The view was nice though. This day was a 120km ride, ended up in the dark for the last 30 minutes, thats a bad idea cos bugs fill up your eyeballs. We also had sore bums.
After some dodgy directions we eventually found this place, a nice stone lighthouse, the object of our whole day trip. The natural light was fading though by this stage so it was a quick snap then back on the iron horse!
This was our sweet beachside accom. we ate delicious fresh cut fruit, muesli, yoghurt and Vietnamese coffee for breakfast, delivered, on these loungers almost every morning. BLOODY DAPPER. Also tried to surf, did jetskiing, etc.
They mainly make fish sauce here. Smelly! Fish come in, fish briefly steamed, fish dried en mass for a day on beach, fish put into salty solution for weeks, fish becomes fich sauce! It may smell but it adds flavour to almost every meal too!







These massive sand dunes were off the shelf. Its a mini desert we got to by old school jeep. You hire a piece of plastic with handles then rip it down the bastards.