Laid back . . . . Laos . . . .

My up most apologies people for the delay in posts of late but you know how it goes, time runs away with you when your having fun!! =D

So I have found my idea of heaven on earth, or as close as I feel it can come any way!

After that shocking bus journey, my last post, we arrived in Laos. Now, how do I describe Laos!? Well for those of you who have seen Jurassic Park, the opening of the movie when you get those amazing views of the island where they have all the dinosaurs, yep well that pretty much sums up what the landscape in Laos is like, minus the dinosaurs, OBVIOUSLY! It is amazingly green and mountainous, it is the MOST beautiful place I have ever seen, the bus journeys around that place are never boring, there is soo much to see looking out the window, like; waterfalls and palm trees and obviously massive sloping landscapes, that before you know it the 4 or how ever many hours have passed. Guessing there is already no need to tell you that Laos is by far my favourite place and I haven't even told you what we got up to!!

Our first stop was the capital of Laos, Vientaine. This place is exactly like arriving in Paris, very chic and full of little bistros and cafe, coffee shop places. We were only here for a few days but it was lovely and OH MY GOD, the people are just great, the total opposite to the Vietnamese, well North Vietnamese.At one point I  found myself wondering around at 6am as I could not sleep, all other signs of travellers were non-existent it was just me and the locals and a few asked if I was ok and then i sat down and had a cup of tea with one of the ladies who ran a Cafe. Other than the people the other most refreshing thing about Laos is that they do not continuously beep their horn every second, in fact i think i heard 3 beeps in the entire week we were there!

We made our way up into the mountains to one of Laos most famous towns, Vang Vieng, the home of tubing!! We stayed in a great little place called Vilayvong, and our room had beautiful views of the jagged mountains that surrounded us. As the title of this post says, it is extremely laid back in Laos, soo much so that when you go to a restaurant, along with your menu for food and drink, you also get a 'specials' menu. This menu gives you a great selection of different ways to enjoy, Opium, Weed and Magic Mushrooms. Yep drugs! Basically in Laos as long as an establishment has a license to sell such things and people only take them in these establishments, there is absolutely NOTHING illegal about any of it!! (Nice to know for some of you!) So your sat chilling on cushions around a low table, listening to Bob Marley, drinking your beer and eating a real meal, or a Happy Pizza (magic mushrooms is the key ingredient) or just casually smoking a joint  and enjoying life. Obviously you can just skip the drugs all together and just enjoy this in this strange but relaxing atmosphere, but i will keep you guessing on what i decided to do! ;-)

However, this is NOT the main attraction of why people come to Vang Vieng, it is, as i said earlier because of the tubing. Now for those of you who do not know what tubing is let me inform you, basically, you get driven 5 kilometers out of town with  a big tube, get in to a river and float down, at intervals you get thrown a rope from a guy at one of the many bars on the bank and you hoist yourself up, enjoy a bucket or two and a few homemade whisky shots, mud volleyball or zip wire into the river and then off you go again back into the river on your tube. The last bar (Bucket Bar) is right back at the start of town. Yes it does sound dangerous and yes it it if your not sensible and get too intoxicated, but believe me even if you did it and did not touch one drop of alcohol the views are most certainly worth it. I found myself floating down the river by myself as I had managed to float out of the current and everyone else was way ahead, but i just sat in my ring and took in all of the stuff around me. It was brilliant and I am glad that I did it, I also met some great people on that day and made it back to town before night fall and got off at the last bar (if you miss this your a bit unlucky as there is a small waterfall a few km after wards, eek!!!)

We enjoyed our stay in VangVieng soo much that we ended up staying there much longer than we planned and did not get to go any further up Laos as we needed to get into Thailand!

x

You just gotta laugh . . .

because sometimes there is nothing else!!!

This is the saying i have adopted in life and it has been very necessary in the last 5 weeks but on Monday 11th October I even had to convince myself that this was the case. . .

So lets rewind a few days back to Thursday 7th October, were in Hanoi and decide that we will leave the day after the 1000 year celebrations and we book bus tickets to our next destination, Laos. We go to a booking office recommeneded by the Lonely Planet called Sinh Cafe, after deciding that at 90pounds flights are too expensive we decide to take a bus, not just any bus a sitting bus (heaven only knows why we made this choice, we somehow convinced ourselves we would be fine!) We purchase our $15 tickets for the 21 hour bus journey and off we go to enjoy the rest of our time in Hanoi . . .  fast forward back to Monday 11th October . . .

4.45pm, we arrive at the booking agents, as told to, we then get put in a cab and arrive back to a hostel, 2 mins from the hostel we were staying in, so firstly, why did we have to walk all the way to the booking office? Finally after a 45 minute wait we are packed on to a minibus with several other people all heading to Vientaine in Laos, too. After 30 minutes driving we arrive at a kind of bus depot and the group are split, some going on to luxury sleeping buses and the rest (8 of us to be precise) are slumming it on the sitting bus. The sleeping bus turns up and on get the first group. Then the guy who collected us tells us to folllow him, so we drag ourselves and our bags for about 10 minutes and then we wait . . . but the place we are waiting is some dodgy street that looks like it is home to Vietnam's most unfinest prostitutes and drug lords, great or what!? After a further 30/40 minutes, and a hundred buses driving past us, our bus, a rickety old one, finally shows up (its been waiting in the bus depot behind us the whole time!!!)

Me and new friends before the back seat got invaded!

So we chuck our bags in the under carriage and board the bus to find, not only an almost packed bus full of Vietnamese people but also the aisles full of bags of rice, fake Lacoste T-shirts and other random stuff. We see seats at the back and head that way, but the gap between the back seats and the ones in front of them have also been packed full of stuff so I take a seat at the back with the two Dutch guys we have met and I have to sit with my knees up to my chin, just wonderful! As there are 5 seats and only the 3 of us at the back we have a little bit of room to spread out, for now!

'opps up side . . '

And so our journey begins, we have not been drving for 20 minutes and the aircon breaks (this continues to go on and off the entire journey and because I am at the back next to one of only four windows on the bus I have to open and shut when needed!!) once they get it back on, we are off again and then another 15 minutes on we stop again, this time to upload even MORE cargo, we look out the window and see all of our bags in a pile on the road side, so off we get to make sure they get put back on before we depart. These kind of shinanigans carry on for the next hour or so and then finally I manage to nod off to sleep. After about 30 minutes I am woken by somebody shoving me in the side. As I get my eyes in to focus I realise that more Vietnamese people are getting on the bus. Two cram themselves on the back seat with me and the dutch guys and the rest all sit on the cargo in the middle of the aisle (the only way I can explain it, is that they look like they are waiting for the song  'oops upside your head . . ' to start playing and then they will do the hand actions to the dance!!!) Then I notice at the front some people can not sit and they just stay standing, for the entire journey. This was complete and utter madness and due to my tiredness I did not know how to feel, but finally I nodded back off to sleep. I woke a few hours later to the Vietnamese lady next to me with her head on my shoulder fast asleep and no air con again! This carried on until about 8am, Bloody marvellous!!!

At 8am we arrived at the Laos border. Firstly we had to go through immigration on the Vietnamese side and once we got through the bus drove off without us. I was soo unimpressed and anyone we tried to ask just started waving their hands as they did not understand, apparently!! Finally one guy who spoke english asked us if we were ok, after explaining he pointed us in the right direction to the Laos entry border and said our bus should be waiting on the other side, which it was. THANK GOD!!! The rest of the journey continued pretty much the same as before, the lady next to me kept feeding me (as if I really need it!) with crispy bacon and some random fruit that on the outside was a cross between an onion and and an apple and inside was like a white pomegranate, but it tasted good.

Squished

Finally at 6.30pm on Tuesday 12th October we arrived at our destination, Vientaine the capital of Laos, much to our suprise! We got straight in a tuktuk and headed to the hostel recommended to us by the girls we met in Cambodia (thankyou ladies it was very nice and real Tesco tea bags with breakfast was a bonus!!)

I appreciate that in this post you guys reading this can not quite grasp the reality of what we went through in that 24 hours or so but it was gruelling and mentally straining. After much deliberation, as I had plenty of time to think about it stuck on that ,I decided that it was most definatley a, 'you gotta laugh' moment and this is why . . . .

Comapred to all the stories we have read about or been toldof on our travels, about the particular crossing we did, we were lucky that we were only deprived of leg room and space, oh and the occassional spout of no air con, because we have heard far worse stories like; bus drivers demanding extra money half way through the journey and if people have no money or refuse to pay then they get thrown off and have to hitchhick the rest of their way, girls getting touched up by pervy men, buses stopping 10km away from the final destination and having to walk the rest, buses being robbed by bandits, buses stopping for 5/6 hours to let the driver sleep (we had a crew of  4 so they took turns) or buses not stopping at all, not even for toilet breaks, the list goes on . . .

So I think, weighing up all of the past experiences with ours, we did not get such a bad deal, it was not great but atleast we and all of our belongings got there in one piece and we can now definatley laugh about it and swear we will never make a crazy decision like that EVER AGAIN!

All of you due to travel be warned!!!

1000 Years of Hanoi . . . .

Vietnamese Family

 We did not plan to be in Hanoi for this massive celebration, my god we didn not even know about it until we got to Hanoi but it was worth being there. Hanoi was packed full of people, you literally could not move in the streets. Every one was wearing crazy red and yellow bandanas with stickers on their faces or the Vietnam flag pinned to them. The atmosphere was electric. There were 4 stages around the old city with, opera singers, dog shows, acrobats and all going on, and a few big TV screens with interesting short movies about the history of Hanoi. The lake, which is the focal point in the old town was lit up with lights and so were the temples in the centre, it looked beautiful.

Us joining in the celebrations

We joined in with the celebrations with a big group from our hostel, all of us with our head bands on and we were off about the town joining in with the rest of Vietnam. Sitting in little plastic chairs in the road beers in hand whilst motos whizzed past us, it was great and
every one was having a good time.

Lake all lit up

It was a lovely end to our stay in Vietnam but I was definatley ready to leave. It's strange, the South of the country is full with lovely people but its not the prettiest of places and in the North the towns and landscape are amazing but the people just are not the same, they do not smile and they are not the most driendliest of people. But, overall Vietnam has been great and i have really enjoyed it!

Hanoi =D

I LOVE HANOI!!!

Streets were all lit up for the celebrations

We arrived in Hanoi at about midnight on Wednesday 6th October and automatically took a shining to the place, it is the total opposite from Ho Chi Minh. Its less crowded, less built up and far more tranquil, especially for a large city! We are staying in the old quarter right next to ST Joseph's Cathedral, which is pretty cool. The streets are all littered with the Vietnam flags, decorations and lights, and were pretty amazed. We have since found out that from the 1st Oct to the 10th Oct, Hanoi are celebrating a 10 day festival, because on the 10th it will be Hanoi's 1000year Birthday, which is pretty exciting and a bit of a once in a lifetime experience, pretty lucky we leave for Laos on Monday night, wouldn't you agree?

Halong Bay

Hanoi, lake in old quarter

All the people we have met along the way up Vietnam, and the Top Gear boys (Clarkson, Hammond & May) have all raved about Halong Bay, which is about 4hrs outside of Hanoi. So we thought we better check it out. We booked ourselves onto a 2day, 1 night boat trip around the world heritage sight that is Halong Bay and trust me it did not disappoint, it is stunningly breathtaking and experiencing it on a boat is just the best was to do it, especially at night sitting on the deck looking up at the stars. Whilst there we also got to go into the caves off some of the islands and explore them and go kayaking, swimming in the blue waters. It was great and certainly worth it. Just look out for the pics i promise the will be up here very very soon so you can all see what im raving on about.

Groupies on the boat

I  have just got back to Hanoi today, to a very packed city filled with the most amazing atmosphere, leading up to tomorrows celebrations, i best go get a good nights sleep so i can enjoy myself and have plenty more to update you all with!!!

much love x

Moving on up the coast . . .

After we left Nha Trang we headed up to Hoi An. It's a really quiet little town on a river, but its very picturesque and lined with tailor shops. You can literally get anything made for you in 24hrs for about 5 to 10 pounds! Its amazing and their craftsmanship and attention to detail is out of this world. Hoi An is all about the architecture, which truly is beautiful so please look out for the pictures!

After a relaxing day in Hoi An, we headed up to Hue, which was great, it was much less of a touristic place and therefore we really got to see how Vietnamese people live, especially when we headed across the bridge into the old town. Whilst there we went into the old palace, that was destroyed in the Vietnam war, but they have been working hard for the past 15 years to restore and it really is a stunning place, especially the grounds inside known as the forbidden Purple city, which was the place that only the king and his family were allowed, talk about luxury even for all those years ago!! It was here that we got to really sample lots of traditional Vietnamese food and also master the use of chopsticks, even for rice. No meal will ever be the same when i return to knives and forks!

After a few days here we were planning to get a 17hr sleeping bus to Hanoi, but in central Vietnam, they suffered really bad floods, where 26 people in total died. This had an affect on the buses and trains and they were all cancelled for 2/3 days. So our only option was to fly up to the north. We had to back track slightly (3hrs) to Danang, which was totally the most non-touristic place we have seen and fly to Hanoi.

Which is where i am currently!

Which is where i am currently!

Nha Trang, South Coast of Vietnam

Well, apologies for the delay but i have been enjoying myself rather a lot.

I last left you with our arrival in Nha Trang, we settled into our hostel, Back packers house and within a few hours Jenna bagged herself a job at the Red Apple, a bar that is run by the hostel, the most popular bar in the town!

We met lots of great people in our dorm and also Beni and Cecil who we met in Cambodia caught up with us so there were plenty of people to enjoy ourselves with! The weather however, had not been too good to us, still boiling HOT, but we did have a few rain showers which obviously limits what you can do, but not us!!

Raf getting all you can eat for $1

 First impressions of Nha Trang were good, its by the beach, there are lots of islands off the coast and its Vietnam's party town! Why not, eh!? We therefore spent a few evenings drinking buckets of whisky and whatever else they provided, dancing the night away at the sailing club (night club) on the beach and then of course at 3am when craving kebab or chips (which obviously there is none of) we end up sitting in what is essentially some couples living room eating chicken noodles with chopsticks! Very challenging!!

Noodles at 3am =D

Soo i read in one of the many travel books before i left Blighty, that, you have not truly traveled until you have your hair cut in a foreign land by somebody who does not speak your language. Of course, me being me, though sod it, whats the worst that can happen!? We found a Vietnamese salon and off they went with their scissors on my mop of curls (and my cousin Raf's). I felt rather sorry for the lady because she was soo short and even with the chair at its lowest she could not reach the top of my head, so i had to lean back . .  i know what your all thinking . . .  what the hell does my hair look like!? Well, in all fairness she did a great job, did not have a clue what thinning was so i still have a mini fro but all is good, so do not panic, i didn't end up bald or with a Mohawk . . . tempting though! While i was having my hair done i thought i would treat myself to a pedicure and at the end i was pleasantly surprised with the bill, bet no one can guess how much a haircut and pedicure cost me?   . . . . . 4 quid . . . i know i could not believe it either and i didn't come out looking like i had a hair growth disorder or that my mum had cut round my head with a bowl on it, Raf on the other hand was distraught that he now looked like a Vietnamese popstar (as informed by many Vietnamese people)!! haha!

One of the managers at our hostel took a shining to our little group and invited us along to the          

Free FOOD!!!!

opening of his friends Mexican restaurant in town (with free meal) Obviously, being backpackers, on a budget, you never EVER turn down free food, so off we went  . . .  and we are sooo glad we went. Firstly, the free food was absolutely delicious and just kept coming, a total mixture of Mexican and a few Vietnamese dishes. Secondly, the hospitality was amazing, we were socialising with all local people, enjoying ourselves dancing with them and their families to a live band and we were fully supplied with free vodka and jagger shots ALL night long. Seriously, Vietnam know how to party and we were very grateful for the experience and the fact they let us join in and participate with them (and of course for the sombrero that is now permanently attached to my rucksack, lets see if it makes it home!)

Mexican night!

Floating bar off Nha Trang coast

Fresh seafood lunch

We decided that we needed to explore the islands that we cold see just off of the coast and booked ourselves on a boat trip for the day with Beni & Cecil. Bright and early we boarded our boat and went off to sea. W e explores one of the islands and then we went snorkeling in the reefs around the island they call Bamboo Island. It was great, especially as i have never snorkeled before. Other went diving and caught sea erchants. Which were later served up to us inform of soup, it was an interesting taste, sorry to sound obvious but it was extremely fishy, but at least i can say i have tried it. We also enjoyed a live band on the boat and an amazing lunch full of sea food all freshly caught and prepared whilst we were sailing. Towards the end of the day we got to go out into the sea in a rubber ring and sit at floating bar in the middle of the ocean, this experience equals WOW. It was sooo much fun and soo beautiful to sit there off the coast surrounded by all these islands enjoying Vietnamese wine and cocktails, it was, owever a slight struggle climbing back on the boat after a few too many!

Motorbike day - I chickened out!

The best way to see Vietnam is to join in with the locas and go round my motor bike. I have on several occasions been on the back of motorbikes here travelling around, but Beni had the genius idea of hiring our own for the day. So of we went to hire then and as i have never driven one before i had to practice up and down the street. Lets just say, the experience was not only unsafe for me but for everyone on the road too. I have absolutely no co-ordination what so ever! So that idea was out of the window. I am determined to master this skill though . .  watch out Potters Bar!

Well that about sums up our 4/5 days in Nha Trang, it was great fun but we have to keep moving on up to coast so we get to see it all before our visas run out!

Good Morning Vietnam . . .

 Well this is where i woke up . . Vietnam!!!

First impressions are WOW . . literally not what i was expecting at all. The contrasts between Cambodia and Vietnam are slightly crazy. Vietnam is soo vast compared to any pictures i had in my head, and this has made me kind of excited to explore.

Indoor market

First stop Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), we stayed with our new friends we met on the bus at a really nice place called Spring House Hotel, right in the middle of Backpacker central. On our first day we bumped into the 3 guys from Texas and went to lunch and then to the local market. The boys had just purchased 3 motor bikes and were planning to ride up Vietnam for the next month (sooo jealous, but my mother would kill me i think!!)

In the evening we went with Jenna and found a really cool roof top bar high above the city and just watched the world go by. Saigon is soo much cleaner compared to Phnom Pehn the Capital of Cambodia.

Groupies

Next morning we braved the local buses with help of some very polite and patient Vietnamesse people (who ever it was that told us they were rude were soo wrong, the people here have been nothing but nice and friendly and much less persistent) We managed to make our way to Saigon airport where my cousin Raf arrived to join us for the rest of our adventure in Asia!! =D

Once we got him back and settled we met the rest of our little gang and went off exploring more of the city. It really is a great city!!!

Braving the roads

In the evening we got yet another sleeper bus and headed to the central coast of Vietnam, a place called Nha Trang, with Jenna in tow too!

And that is where i am now people so you are all up to date!! (am trying to upload pics but Vietnam have banned Facebook!!) haha!!!

Cambodia - Just 1 in a million . . .

 Well hello everyone!!

Hope you are all well? I know it has been a week but i have been majorly busy sorry!

I last left you just as we arrived in Sihanoukville . . . things have only got better since my amigos! =D

Sihanoukville is like peace on earth, it is soo tranquil and not very touristic (yet - this is all due to change as there are at least 4 or 5 large hotels being built) The accomodation we stayed at in Monkey Republic was nice. We had our own bamboo bungalow in the middle of a little Banana tree forest, so pretty all lit up at night by fairylights. We were a 5minute walk from a beach called Serendipity, which is a lovely beach but you get rather harasssed by ladies trying to give massages and children selling braclets etc. But thats the price you pay for witnessing the most magnificent views i guess!?

Otres Beach from the rocks

We bumped into a group of girls who we had previously met in Siem Reap and they told us that they had been to a beach, about 10mins away by tuktuk that was worth it. So next day we headed to the beach they recommended, this was called Otres beach. I kid you not people we pulled up in our tuk tuk in this little forest area and were slightly confused. The driver told us to go down these steps next to the rocks and as we did we were literally gob smacked. For miles infront of us was the most amazing, white sands and turqouise blue seas, it was literally like walking into the front of a post card. There was a small handful of people spread out across the beach. So we picked our spot and enjoyed the peace and tranquility. It was like there was no one else there. Soooo nice!

Any hooo, going back to Serendipity, one side of the beach is lined with little bamboo cafes/restaurants and bars. We were told to go down there in the evening and try a bbq on the beach so we did as we were told and we were not disappointed. For $3 each we had the most delicious BBQ, you can have any choice of chicken, pork, snapper fish, lobster (the list is endless) with chips or rice, a massive salad and homemade garlic bread. It was sooo yummy and all for like 2 quiud, even better! haha!

UV Party @ JJ's

We explored the night life in Sihanoukville too, it's definatley a place to party. One place we really loved was called JJ'S playground, a bar on the beach. They mirrored Thailand's famous Full Moon Party on 23rd September, it was a great warmup for the real thing next month! I'm still finding UV paint all over my stuff now! The 2 guys and their stuff (3 guys from Texas who were a right laugh) who run the place are all great and we had more than one night dancing the night away there and on the beach.

First experience on a sleeper bus!

All in all we spent 5 nights and 6 days in Sihanoukville, it was relaxing and nice to just explore the place. So we borded our bus at 8pm on Sunday 26th September and we met a new group of people heading on the same route as us. Jenna from New Zealand and Beni & Cecil from Germany. It was quite exciting knowing that I was going to sleep in one country and would wake in another . . . .  . But Cambodia would be greatly missed and has set a high standard!!!

Cambodia soo far . . .

Temple in Tomb Raider

Sorry it's been a while people, i have been busy busy busy!!

So turns out the first stop in Cambodia was AMAZING so our 2 nights and 3 days turned into 5 nights and 6 days, Siem Reap was great, full of character and very colourful!

Angkor Wat

We spent an entire day exploring all the temples and the main one Angkor Wat, they are all stunning pieces of architecture and none are exactly the same which is an achievement in itself, because we were told that in all there are 10,000 temples! (we did not get to see them all unfortunately) We also got to see the Temple which they used in Tomb Raider so all you Jolie fans, look out for the pictures!! Also, had a classic Nina moment, where i locked the keys for my padlock inside my bag and had  NO access to any of my stuff, so i had to hitch a ride on the back of a police mans motorbike to some place who smashed the lock for me. As the day continued i had to explain to everyone that i was not in trouble with the police, as they were helping me! opps!!

Siem Reap has a focal point, 2 roads that run parallel, Pub Street and the Alley. The Alley, as stated in the name is a wide alley way full off restaurants, you could easily mistake it for a little road somewhere in a French village, it was picture perfect and the food was great too. We tried some traditional Cambodian (Khmer) dishes, including jasmine rice, chicken luc lac and pumpkin cake, which is pumpkin parceled in banana leaves and steamed, absolutely delicious! Pub Street also says it all as it is a street full of bars and 'pubs' it has a nice atmosphere and is a good place to meet people, its no Malia so don't worry people! But you can get a nice draft beer for 30p!!! =D (Yess i have turned into a beer drinker!! damn it being soo cheap!)

Tuk Tuk

Weather has been amazing and we found ourselves with a day free before we left so we decided to go and raid a 5 star hotel with one of our new friends from Canada, we used the pool for the day and the spa which was nice and relaxing!

Victims mugshots in S21

So Monday 20th (i think) we left Siem Reap and made our way down to Phnom Phen, the Capital. The 6 hour bus journey went rather fast considering! We arrived in the afternoon and already had an instant dislike for the place so decided to cut our 2 nights to 1 night straight away. The city is packed and really polluted, this mixed with the heat makes it unbearable and hard to breath! So we got some accommodation and set about booking a ticket straight out of there! Next morning we went to S-21 and the Killing fields and learn't all about the genocide under the reign of Palpot. It was really eerie and upsetting and the worst part was that it didn't really happen that long ago, it was in the last 50 years!!





After a good half a day, we got our bus to Sihanouk ville, 4 hours later and we were there. We are staying in a place called Monkey Republic, its a cool place run by 4 guys from Cambridge (they have Heinz baked beans!) Its cool and got a relaxing vibe, full of travellers so i best get back there and start mingling!!


Ciao bella people x

Hong Kong . . .

Victoria Harbour by day

Bar Street on Hong Kong Island

So we finally arrived in Hong Kong and the only word i have to describe it is 'mental' its such a crazy busy place, but at the same time its amazing with its grandness and all the colours and lights!!

We finally got to meet up with my lovely friend Fiona from uni, who is from Hk, she took us under her wing (we were a bit overwhelmed on the first day) and showed us around the city, she also took us for some amazing food!!

Fi, Me & Claire

We visited the Hong Kong culture centre and  the Avenue of stars (got a classy pic of me with my hands in Jackie Chan's prints) did a bit of shopping too as i just could not resist!! One of the highlights of the city was taking the star Ferry at night across Victoria Harbour, it was absolutely beautiful seeing the city lit up at night in all its greatness. Due to disaster with flight and jet lag we did not get time to do much else as we only had a day and a half, but i would like to go back and explore some more. ( watch out Fi!!!!)

Victoria Harbour by Night

Yesterday we flew from HK to Bangkok and then from Bangkok we boarded a bus and made the longest and most tiring journey to the Cambodia border at Aranya Prathet in Northern Thailand, Northern Thailand is very remote and filled with small little villages.
 Due to a delay on the bus and some flooding from the rain in the north we arrived too late to cross the boarder so being the only travellers on the bus in the dark we had to find somewhere to stay . . . a tuktuk driver to took us to a guest house which was not the nicest of places but was going to have to do for the 1 night, i don't think either of us really slept that well!! So we got up bright and early and made our way to the border, about 10mins up the road and also managed to tell two lots of touts to bugger off with their over priced visas. At the border we endured the queues and ALL the paper work and finally got into Cambodia. After a further 2hour journey we made it to our destination (just a few hours ago), Siem Reap to a lovely hostel suggested by our guide book called Golden Temple Villa which is where im currently updating you all from.

Thank you for reading, i'm off to explore and enjoy so i have some more to update you with! x x x

False Start . . .

Sooo . . . the adventure began on Friday 10th September at Heathrow Airport, we said goodbye to our families and headed through to departures, just as we had been through the final security check we noticed our flight had been delayed by 2hrs! =(
An announcement for all passengers on our flight to come to the customer service desk was made so we dragged our heels over there and received a pleasant surprise . .  Cathay Pacific were giving all passengers a 20pound meal voucher to use at any of the eateries in the terminal, so me and Claire being us headed straight for the most expensive, Chez Gerard, where we enjoyed a nice meal, unknown to us, the worst was still to come . .  We noticed our flight had been put back for a further 2hrs, but finally at midnight we got to board the plane and finally set off on our journey, or so we thought!!

45mins into the flight the captain made an announcement . . . "We are currently over the ocean and are experiencing a few technical problems as our back engine has failed . . " At this point i started to freak out as i assumed his next words were going to be something along the words of . . 'we need to do an emergency landing in the sea' (which by the way is my WORST NIGHTMARE!!! However, lucky for us my assumption was wrong as he said " . . . we need to turn around and return to Heathrow to have the problem fixed." THANK GOD!!! =D

45mins later plus the tank of fuel they needed to get rid of we landed back at Heathrow, to be told the problem was not a simple one, so off we trotted out of Heathrow at 5am in the morning to a 150 pound a night hotel. At 8am we went down and met the representatives from Cathay Pacific, who told us the aircraft is unrepairable and after queuing for a few hours to try and be put onto a new flight they finally announced that a whole new plane was being sent to take us, so FINALLY at 3pm on Saturday 11th September we got to leave the UK and make our way to Hong Kong, wooohooooo!!!! =D

The Final Countdown . . .

Hey people,

Sooo i have never EVER done a blog before but I thought there is a first for everything and what a good way to let you all know what im getting up to, so here goes nothing . . .

As morst of you are well aware i'm off on my travels on 10th September with my very good friend Claire, it's exactly 19 days today! eeekk!!

Its all becoming a whole lot more real, as this week will be my final week at work and all the last minute preperations are starting to take place, including all of the goodbyes!

Asusual i am my unorganised self and have not even thought about what i will pack, oh dear.

Well it's goodbye from me for now, sorry this is a bit lame but im sure the posts will get more exciting once i've actually gone!!!

Muchos Love

Nina x