Ho Chi Minh City: But my friends call me Saigon

Nothing could prepare me for the pain of waking myself up at 3am on a Vietnamese sleeper train, scrabbling around in the dark for my belonging and clambering off the train into a dark Ho Chi Minh station. Worse still, we arrived early, so it was an anxious rush to get everything together before getting off the train. Bleery-eyed and confused we piled into taxis to the hotel that my tour had booked. We arrived to find the rooms were not ready yet. Sam and I had a back-up plan, though. We'd booked a hostel. So we got a taxi over to the hostel (which was in the backpacker part of town), only to find the place closed and shuttered up. We'd told them we'd be arriving around this time. Desperately we banged on the metal shutter. We waited. Thankfully, a sleepy-looking receptionist appeared and let us in. Our room wouldn't be ready until 10am, though, so we could have a different room until then. Fine. We got into our small room, with a broken air conditioning unit and partially functional bathroom door, and immediately fell asleep.

Later that day we dragged ourselves out of bed and down to a restaurant just down the street where we refueled on a delicious full English breakfast. Then we headed out on our first mission - trying to track down a post office to send some of our (now overflowing) collection of souvenirs home. We got directions to the central post office from our hostel and decided we could walk there from the hostel, which, as it turns out, we could quite easily. It took a bit of finding, though. First we wandered into the center of town and passed a shockingly western complement of highstreet stores. Following the map we found ourselves on a quieter road just a block or two away from the busy highstreet, and eventually located a rather unassuming building which we determined must the be post office. It was the weekend though, and the post office was most definitely closed.

Sleeper to Ho Chi Minh

Another night, another sleeper train. Of to my final destination in Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City

A Christmas in Nha Trang

We got up early and drove from Hoi An to Da Nang, where we were supposed to board a day train to  the beach town of Nha Trang. The trains in Vietnam are known for being bad at timings - sometimes they're early, sometimes they're late. They are rarely on time. This one was late, and we had to wait over an hour in the rather inadequately provisioned train station. Eventually the train arrived and we all hurried with our luggage onto the train tracks to climb up into the train - once inside it was chaos, with far too many people trying to cram too much luggage down the narrow carriage isles and into their cabins.

The added bonus of this 10 hour journey was that I was meeting my friend and repeat travel buddy Sam, who had got on the train in Hanoi the night before, Understandably, he was feeling a little worse for wear after over 12 hours on a Vietnamese sleeper train, but we actually quite enjoyed the journey, watching the Vietnamese countryside roll past and drinking beer in the bar carriage. It was Christmas eve, after all, so drinking seemed to be in order! We arrived in Nha Trang around 9pm, checked into the hotel as quickly as we could and headed out to find some food and suitable Christmas eve entertainment.

Train to Nha Trang

I'm catching a train today, down to the beautiful beach town of Nha Trang, where I will be spending Christmas.

Hoi An: Land of Lanterns

After a fairly miserable few days in Hue, we drove down to Hoi An, a quaint ancient town on the banks of the Thu Bon River. Immediately, Hoi An lifted my spirits. It was a beautifully picturesque town, with narrow winding streets of yellow buildings lit by delicate lanterns. We spent the afternoon walking around the ancient town, seeing temples and visiting a traditional house that was absolutely beautiful, and totally serene. The house was long and thin with a partly open-plan layout - different 'rooms' were created with small dividers and furniture placement and the whole place felt very light and airy. Hoi An was a fair bit warmer than Hanoi and Hue had been, but inside the house air flowed easily and it was cool and relaxing. A very well-designed house!

To Hoi An

Today I will travel by bus from Hue to Hoi An.

Hue: There's No Hue I'd Go Back

From Hanoi I took a sleeper train down to the ancient town of Hue (pronounced hway), boarding at around 7pm and arriving at 8.30am the following morning. The sleeper train was much the same as the one I took in China, except this time I was sharing with westerners. Overall, though, the feel of the train was much more grimy and less modern. Western toilets, though, so I can't complain. I ate my instant noodles and we had a few beers in the train bar before they kicked us out at 10pm, and I went to bed. I slept pretty well, the rocking of the train was perfect to put me to sleep, although the mattress was fairly hard so I woke up the following morning feeling quite stiff. 

We took a taxi from Hue station to the hotel, checked in and then me and my friend Monique headed out to explore the Imperial Citadel. It was very pretty, the citadel walls and buildings felt far more ancient than anything I have seen so far, and a lot of them are really more ruins than buildings, now. It was nice to see an ancient town that hasn't been so heavily restored.

From Hanoi to Hue

Hanoi: Good Morning Vietnam!

After just over 3 weeks in China and Hong Kong, I finally headed into Southeast Asia, where my first stop would be Hanoi, Vietnam. My flight was a rather frustrating one; they changed my gate at the last minute leaving Hong Kong, then the flight was delayed while we waited for several lost passengers, and when we finally arrived, I waited over an hour for my bag to come through. After about 40 minutes waiting, as other passengers from my plane began to peel off with their bags, I was starting to sweat. Having lost my bag once before, when flying out to Honduras, baggage claim is always a nerve-wracking wait for me. Thankfully, it did eventually appear, and the relief of seeing my bulging gray and red backpack emerge onto the conveyor belt was wonderful. I caught a taxi from the airport into central Hanoi, and after about 20 minutes the fear of being robbed or swindled somehow died down. It took about an hour to get to my hostel and when I arrived I quickly discovered that I'd managed to mess up the booking. I booked a lot of hostels for the trip, a long time ago, and apparently for this one I had failed to change the month when selecting dates (which is automatically set to the current month), so I'd unwittingly booked a room for July, rather than December. Oops! Thankfully the hostel had space for me, but only a private room, which I was happy to accept rather than try looking elsewhere - at least in Vietnam a private room only cost me about ten pounds!

Flying South: To the Mekong and Beyond

Today I head to Vietnam to start the next leg of my journey. I will be flying from Hong Kong to Hanoi today, arriving at about 3.30pm (local time).

Travel Prep: Asia and Australasia

I am now in the final weeks of preparation before I depart on my adventure around Asia and Australasia. I will be gone for 4½ months and visit 10 different countries. Logistically, it is rather complicated. In terms of visas and entry requirements, just finding out what you need and what is and isn't allowed is a mammoth task in itself. So, here is some of the wisdom I've gained along the way. 

Asia Adventure

Hello, stranger!

Great news - I'm planning another trip, which means more posts here very soon. This time I'm indulging myself in some purely recreational travel, no field work! And, I'm finally going to make it over to Asia, one continent I've not been lucky enough to visit before.

I'll be jetting off on November 13th for 4 months travel around southeast Asia and Australasia. Here's a list of the places I plan to visit:

• Japan
• China
• Vietnam
• Cambodia
• Thailand
• Laos
• Borneo
• Bali
• Komodo, Flores, Rinca
• Australia
• New Zealand

Watch this space for new travel updates very soon!