Keith, Peter, Gavin, Ray & Rhona are doing a a 6500km trip from Singapore to Hong Kong via the coast, and i join up for the Vietnam leg, from Saigon to Hanoi.
Had a 6 hour stop over in Singapore, spent the whole time with the lady from the information desk. The best transit experience, met the guys at the hotel, back again yahoooo!
Saigon, few call it Ho Chi Minh. I cannot explain just how amazing the traffic is here, vehicles crammed into every spare inch (literally) and still moving! Complete chaos with everyone just managing to miss each other, just when you see an accident about to happen, it doesn't. Trekking area is good.
Gavin, our brilliant navigator, found a quiet route out to the coast. Great to be back again, cycling the roads out in south-east asia life. Quite taken back by how fit everyone is. Will be a hard ride, yum, yum.
Nha Trang is a tropical sunny paradise by the sea. Great boat trip yesterday - blue sky + turquoise ocean, snorkeling coral reefs and a floating bar - happy hour drinks are free as long as you're in the water - an air mattress helps. We all thought about what xmas rush would be like back home - laughed our heads of for 5 minutes uncontrollably - one of those giggling fits with no explanation!
The dog food is great. Got chatting with a rickshaw driver, "no way did i'm walking", but before I knew it we'd gone to visit his sister, and the 3 of us hopped on the same moped to the local dog food shop. Yes, i mean a restaurant that serves dog food to people. All I can say is that it tastes like lamb, but I didn't dwell on it. The crispy batter coating helped take my mind of the actual meat inside.
In 'Hoa Tuio' now, a lovely non-descript town 120km north of Nha Trang. Me and Peter are stretching are legs with a good walk into town, nice internet cafe here, surrounded by charming Vietnamese people - a good bike ride with a supurb hill climb and coastal views along sandy bays - very hot, sun factor 30 all the way - life is hard for the Vietnamese and they they still manage to be so nice to us. We do enjoy our well earnt water stops out on the road.
HAPPY XMAS and new year, try not to get sun burnt back in the UK