And here we all are below, enjoying yet more yummy street food.

My arms weren’t quite long enough to get all of us in.

Anyway, I first met Rick and Rosie in Dubai when we all lived a luxurious lifestyle of fast cars, gourmet food and growing fatter. They were lovely enough to welcome me and my friend Noah into their fabulous old-style Vietnamese wooden house and show us how different life is in Saigon, compared to the UAE. Look at their gorgeous courtyard, complete with bike collection and serene Buddha.

We also hit up a karaoke place. You can’t get rowdy at Karaoke back in Dubai really… at least not in the same way as you can in Saigon. Rick even stood ON THE SEATS in the specially themed Audi room. Gasp. Also, we didn’t pay for karaoke. In Vietnam it’s so popular they let you into their rooms to sing for free, as long as you buy drinks. Imagine! If this had been the case back in the UK I would have literally moved into a karaoke room and never come out.

Neither can men lift airplanes in Dubai, like Noah did on our visit to the War Remnants Museum. This was a pretty sobering place, showing hundreds of photos of the devastation caused by the American phase of the Vietnam War. Check out the guns. (The good ones, I mean, ugh).

I also saw the biggest bowl of pho EVER. Which was nice. Even though it was made of plastic.

Although Rosie preferred this little fish…

Ah Vietnam I will miss you, and I will Miss Saigon (sorry). Huuuuge thanks to Rick and Rosie for showing us the place in style before we packed our bags for Bali! xx

A video speaks a thousand photos, so here’s the video:

Heading off on a motorbike and scooter to Dalat and back with a crazy guy called Bo (real name Nguyen Anh Duc) who works for True Friends Hostel and Travel House in Nha Trang turned out to be the most insane, fun thing we’ve done in Vietnam. Do it!!!

Bo was hilarious… we’re so glad we went off on this adventure with him. We saw coffee plantations, shrimp farms, silkworms and silk factories, long houses, bustling fishing ports and tons more awesome stuff along the way. Including, of course, Bo, eating various things that shouldn’t be eaten.

Check out True Friends Hostel and Travel House here on Trip Advisor. I just added my review!

And the sky says, well, that’s all very impressive. I only sparkle by night, my treasures are infinite but undiscovered and when I move, I myself go mostly unseen. But you have to know mighty ocean, that while people don’t always look up at me, without me they wouldn’t know which way was down.

And that, my friend, would make an awfully big mess.

So as the endless sky I present to you a painting, to remind you I too am swirling in the silence. I give to you great ocean, these clouds; balls of fire flaming higher than the tallest building man can make. I’ll paint it all again, minute by minute, each shade designed to change your colors in turn. Together we will blaze in both the ups and downs, the real and the reflection and no human, either in me or in you will ever think to question who is best. Because we are each other.

We are the world.

And we are beautiful.

**Nha Trang, Vietnam

Dung (pronounced Yung) has been a guide for two years and is pretty much the most enthusiastic human I’ve ever encountered. He probably speaks the best English I’ve heard anyone speak here in Vietnam too, although I got the distinct feeling he learnt it by watching Sylvester Stallone on TV, as every word was belted like a defining line in an action movie. In fact, only this caged (possibly rabid) monkey was more animated this morning, seeing as we got up at 6.30am to take Dung’s tour.

Scary.

Being “in charge” of our experience, Dong was determined to tell us everything he knows about this UNESCO World Heritage site , an hour from Hoi An in Vietnam, which was once a sacred place for the Cham people to hold religious ceremonies. He didn’t know why the monkey was in the cage at the entrance but he did know how the doors in My Son always faced east to receive the sunrise, which was nice… even if these days they mostly receive sweaty tourists all trying to get a photo without any sweaty tourists in it.

“It is 38. Degrees. In. My. Son”, Dung informed us, as a growing sweat patch  under the arm of his neatly ironed shirt confirmed his statement. The stifling heat around the ruins had most of us chugging back water and wiping our faces on our own clothes, with the exception of one lady who seemed to be on some sort of arctic exploration in her own head:

Each to their own.

The French stumbled across the site of My Son in the late 19th century and decided to restore it, bless their stripy cotton socks. They weren’t all niceties and “please have some soft baguettes while you work,” though. Not by a long shot. Dung told us how the Vietnamese have had to replace all the heads on the human statues in My Son because the French nicked them and put them in the Louvre in Paris. I thought this was particularly sad as I’ve been to the Louvre in Paris and the “boring collection of boring heads in the boring wing just right of the Mona Lisa” wasn’t getting much attention out of context. Shame. Here’s one of the new heads on an old body:

Bit rubbish really. I sort of want to go back to the Louvre with this photo and see if I can guess which head used to be on it.

Anyway, none of that head thievery mattered much in the end anyway because along came the Americans, who bombed the crap back out of My Son, leaving just 20 out of what was once 68 beautiful temples. The derelict earthen colours in the ancient bricks and moss looked like the perfect backdrop for a photo shoot to me… especially when these girls with umbrellas got involved:

We walked around some giant craters now covered in grass, caused by the bombs and Dung showed us a couple that were dug up later in the ruins of one temple. I couldn’t help but think they’d make lovely urns these days. In fact, if Dung hadn’t told me they were bombs, I probably would have thought that’s what they were. (Remind me never to join a weapon recovery team).

A few years ago U.S $250,000 (400 billion dong) was put into reconstruction of My Son, which Noah says is what some clients in New York will pay for one rooftop garden. Puts things into perspective a bit. It’s not hard to see why it should all be restored though.

Overlooked by Hon Quap, (Cat’s Tooth Mountain) My Son in its heyday was the most important religious and intellectual centre of the kingdom of Champa. Hinduism and Buddhism were mixed together here, as they were in Angor Wat in Cambodia.  It’s pretty enough today for all of its rubbly abandonment, surrounded as it is by babbling streams and jungle. It’s all the more intriguing for its dedication to divinities, such as Shiva – someone I talked a lot with in Bali last year. Shiva was seen as both the founder and protector of the Champa dynasty and watched over My Son from its initial occupation in the late 4th century. There’s a linga on site, for good luck. Good luck in what I’m not exactly sure but I touched it anyway, (ahem).

It’s a shame that My Son was stripped of its gold-plated glory after it tumbled into decline, as its towers must have once shimmered and shone like the top of the Chrysler Building. Imagine that in this jungle setting, against the mountains; a glimmering Vietnamese legend in the making.

We declined Dong’s offer of a hot and sweaty boat ride back to Hoi An, even though he made the inclusive “Soft. Lunch” sound tempting. Turns out a “soft lunch” is vegetarian, as opposed to a hard lunch which I assume features mountains of meat, as usual. Instead we fell asleep on the death-bus back to the city and dreamed of headless statues, rabid monkeys and a strange Arctic explorer in the 38 degree jungle.

**We booked our tickets to My Son with the guy at the front desk of our hotel in Hoi An, who put us on our fully sized shuttle bus for $5 each. Still we got there ok, if a little sweaty and then paid the 100,000 dong each to enter the site. Not too bad at all.

The sun is setting in old Hoi An, Vietnam and slowly, as the silver linings of every cloud are highlighted for all to see in a blaze of indigo, pink and amber, the candles flicker their way along the water, bought for a dollar apiece and set free by the hands of young lovers making wishes on the river banks.

I’m a Disney princess in a twirling dress, leaning on the bridge, where the silhouettes of gold and scarlet dragons frame a thousand photos taken by tourists. I’m waiting to board my boat into the sunset and a stream of lanterns turning ripples into a moving kaleidoscope of swirls…

All my life, watching from the windows.

All my life, outside looking in.

All this time, never really knowing,

just how blind I’ve been.

Now I’m here, blinking in the starlight.

Now I’m here, suddenly I see.

Standing here, it’s crystal clear,

it’s where I’m meant to be.

And at last I see the light,

and it’s like the fog has lifted.

And at last I see the light.

And it’s like the sky is new.

And it’s warm and real and bright,

and the world has somehow shifted.

All at once, everything is different.

Now that I see you.

And that’s why Hoi An is like a Disney movie

We paid the equivalent of just six dollars each to travel the three hours or so from Hue to Hoi An in Vietnam, horizontally. Everybody can lie down. Together. If this was 1963 it would probably be a different story.

I thought it was a bit weird when the driver took my ticket and exchanged it for a plastic bag just now, and then instructed me to put my shoes in it. Shoes are clearly bad on a bus full of beds. My seat in the middle has a pull-down TV screen above the drinks tray, which also doubles as a handy desk for my laptop so I can write this. Genius. Oh… the pic is a bit rubbish and blurred because the bus was moving, sorry.

I’ve never seen a bus like this before, but these would have made those godforsaken cross-country trips across South America earlier this year a lot better. People can actually lie down and spread out in rows of three or four, and there’s even a top deck…

Pretty much everyone is on their phones, but what’s new? All they need now on here is WIFI and perhaps a drinks trolley… and maybe a beautician to come round and paint everyone’s toenails?

THIS is the stuff that makes travelling FUN.

**NOTE: After getting off this bus we realised we had been deposited in Danang, instead of Hoi An. We had to get a taxi from Danang to our hotel in Hoi An which took almost 25 minutes and cost us 420,000 dong. This was way more than the cost of our bus tickets. Our bus tickets from Hue to Hoi An were just over 100,000 dong each. Error. Always ask the Vietnamese bus drivers where you are when they shove you off a bus. We weren’t the only ones who got off too soon – practically the whole bus was evicted in the wrong place! Cool sleepover. Rude wake up call.

If anyone had tried to do this to Monet last year in Bali I would have stuck them on a stick and fried them! Monet was my friend. We spoke nightly as he hung out behind the painting in my bedroom, ate mosquitoes and shat occasionally on my bed. They eat all kinds of weird shizzle here. The other day, during dinner at our homestay in Sapa a bowl of dark, stewed meat was placed on the table and our Red Dao tribe host beamed as she motioned for us to try it. ‘We killed yesterday,’ she said. ‘His brother.’ I followed her pointing finger with my eyes to a fluffy dog sniffing around the table, presumably looking for his lost sibling and wondering what that sweet-smelling new meat was on the human’s plates.

FYI, the above wasn’t exactly what was served, but you get the idea. And it was actually enough for me to turn vegetarian for one whole hour. Yesterday, Noah and I hired a bike and went motorcycling around the temples of Hue with a lovely lady in a denim outfit called Daong. Daong sidled up to us as we were parked, huddled over a map looking lost, and announced she would be our guide. Why not, we thought. She seems really friendly and after all, we have no bloody idea where we’re going. Seeing as it was her day off from working on the farm she guided us to the impressive Tomb of Thieu Tri and the equally magnificent Minh Mang’s royal tomb, where we met these guys…

And then Daong took us to her home, where she poured us green tea, fixed us with a beguiling stare and told us she needed money to pay for her children’s schooling. We handed over 500,000 dong, which we thought was very generous. Then she asked for more. Awkward. Anyway, I digress. Having paid up and refused to hand over any more cash, in spite of being sat at her table between her bed and piles of her drying laundry (again – awkward), off we went to see more temples. With dripping temples and other sticky orifices of our own – eeew – we stopped for drinks, which is when I came across the delicious Bird’s Nest White Fungus Drink here, brought to us by Wonderfarm. Mmmm.

So yes, there are a lot of freaky things to get used to about Vietnam but it’s all an adventure and the things they do with pork more than make up for the things they do with geckos, dogs and white fungus. It’s quite fun riding on motorbikes too, even if it does mean dicing with death on bridges like this and getting swindled twenty bucks to follow a local to a few temples…

Next stop, Hoi An!

See? Time machine.

When my friend Linda heard I was heading to Vietnam she was wonderful enough to write me a huuuuge list of things to do, but trekking in Sapa with the organization Sapa O’Chau was right at the top. It definitely made the overnight Sapaly train ride (and dealing with the French snorer) worthwhile. I mean, hot tubs aside, it’s not very often you get to trek through landscapes like this:

We met Peter – the Sheffield lad who helped this organization become what it is today – at the Sapa O’Chau Café in town, where we were to start our three-day, two-night trek. Here he is along with me, modeling the sign outside our second homestay in Ta Phin. I’m coming to that.

Peter’s staff are a chatty group of local guys and girls who’ve all studied at the Sapa O’Chau school to both learn English and prepare themselves for work in tourism. They made us coffee as we took quick showers and prepared a bag between us. Within the hour we were off into the hills with our guide Sho. Here she is washing her shoe after telling us to watch out for buffalo shit and then falling into a stream herself. Bless.

We also had a trainee guide with us – Asho. We all had a bit of a sing-song and story swap as we found ourselves surrounded with what has to be some of the most visually inspiring scenery I’ve ever seen. I took a little twirl with Sho’s sun umbrella and had a quick sit on this abandoned motorcycle – just to emphasize the backdrop for you here you understand… not to be a poser at all….

Asho sang every H’mong song he knew while we climbed over fences, dodged buffaloes and oncoming goat herds and bought indigo-dyed scarves from H’mong women. Most of them were the kind of enchanting, melodious numbers that put English-language ditties like ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ to shame. I thought a lot about the differences in our worlds as we hiked past impressive ruins dating back to the French occupation in the early 1900s and I watched scenes of otherworldly awesomeness unfold before my eyes, like these sidewalk butcher-ettes here, for example:

You’d buy a lot more meat if your local sellers looked like this, right? And it would definitely make a weekend shop a bit more fun than popping to Tescos, although I’m sure the Food Standards Agency would have something to say about it.

Our first overnight stop was in the family home of a lady called Mai. To reach her house we had to walk through terraces over 100 years old, down to a village of the H’mong minority called Y Linh Ho and then on to Lao Chai. Most people in this village work on the land for a living. At Mai’s house we helped to cook spring rolls, got more than a bit tipsy on rice wine, listened to Asho sing some more and then went to bed in what can only be described as the den of my childhood dreams – a comfy mattress on the floor scattered in cushions and a big fluffy blanket all covered by a mosquito net embroidered with flowers. Here we are in her kitchen the next morning:

For brekky we had a traditional Vietnamese feast of pho ba (beef noodles) with steamed morning glory, bitter melon and rice, and then it was off for more trekking and even more insane views.

If you’re travelling to Vietnam and you only do one thing pleeeeeeease make sure it’s trekking with Sapa O’Chau. We were a bit sad and sniffy when it came to saying bye to Sho and Asho and Peter, but they’re doing amazing work here in Sapa and welcome volunteers to work in the school, too. All volunteers and trekkers get a turn in the time machine by the way – as if you weren’t enticed enough already.

You can see the rest of my photos from our time with Sapa O’Chau here.

O’Chau! (That means goodbye!) xx

Like Harry Potter heading off to Hogwarts we were about to spend the night on a sleeper train to Lao Cai, before heading on to Sapa for our trekking with the organisation Sapa O’Chau. Our overnight train tickets were presented in Vietnamese via email and we booked through Sapa O’Chau.

The Sapaly Express Train carriages are run by the Best Western hotel chain and are supposed to make up the “high-class tourism train from Hanoi to Lao Cai.” I’ve taken plenty of horrible buses across South America over the past year, so I wasn’t expecting much better quality from an overnight train across northern Vietnam to be honest – even one run by Best Western – BUT I can honestly say it hasn’t been too bad. It cost just U.S $35 one way for the 8-9 hour journey and our cabin looked like this when we boarded…

Our carriage was number 12. We were assigned a bottom bunk and the one above it, so we had to share with two strangers on the other side who turned out to be a French couple. The bloke snored like a sledgehammer (take ear plugs) but anyway… before we even boarded we were accosted by a man wanting to lead us to our carriage. We just assumed he worked for Sapaly.  He took our tickets and with barely a nod of his head he was speed-walking up the platform ahead of us. We struggled after him with our bags until we reached number 12, at which point he thrust the tickets back at us and pointed us up the stairs.

Once we reached our cabin he proceeded to bang on the window, demanding tips. Er… tips for what? You didn’t even carry my frickin’ bag!

Don’t let anyone take your ticket or lead you up the platform in Hanoi. Your train probably won’t leave for another hour and you’ll be forced to sit on your bed while an irritating man taps menacingly on the glass like an oversized demon pigeon. Never a good thing.

You can always draw the curtain of course. Ours was a beautiful golden colour which looked particularly fetching in the lamplight. We also had air-conditioning and plenty of plug sockets so it wasn’t long before we’d left the demon pigeon behind and were watching a movie on the laptop on our way to Lao Cai.

Sapaly also provided this little pack, including a toothbrush, toothpaste and a comb, oh and a wet wipe in case you’ve left your toiletries at the bottom of your rucksack and you can’t be bothered to fumble for it in a cabin the size of a wardrobe.

The coffee in that photo was given to me in the morning. It’s “fully sized”, overly-sugared and cost me 20,000 dong. I asked if they could perhaps fill the cup up, seeing as it had been a long night and I’d spent most of it being orally abused by the snoring French man. But our lovely server simply nodded his mis-understanding, smiled that adorable Vietnamese teen-smile and disappeared, never to return. Oh well.

As well as the snoring French man, I should perhaps mention that we were all subjected to some seriously loud… and I’m talking head-fuckingly loud… banging ALL night. This was not the kind of banging you might be thinking of. This was the banging, I think, of the carriage rattling at full speed over broken railway tracks. Either that or an army of armed demon pigeons were clinging to the undercarriage cracking whips at every opportunity. It was so loud it turned to gunshots and whiplash in my dreams and then woke me up roughly every hour or so.

All in all though, I think if you avoid dodgy men on the platform, take your own coffee for top ups and remember to insert a pair of industrial strength ear plugs before bed,  the train from Hanoi to Lao Cai with Sapaly is a pretty good option.

And even if you don’t get any sleep, at least you get to feel like Harry Potter for a bit, which always makes everything more fun in the end.

Halong Bay, which literally means “descending dragon bay”) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and pretty much a must-see on the backpacker or traveller route from north to south Vietnam. The highlight is the thousands of limestone karsts and isles you get to see from your cruise liner, poking out of the water like black and brown chipped teeth of various sizes and shapes. It’s a bit like being on a movie set – you can see how a period drama of some sort might be set here. It was raining on our visit too, which added to the mystery and adds a touch more drama to the piccies!

Anyway, the Paloma cruise liner was great, we had reeeeeally comfy beds with pristine white sheets and fluffy pillows, air-conditioning, a free fruit platter and bottles of water, a fridge and a safe in our cabin! Plus, the wooden decked bathroom was the best bathroom I’ve ever seen on any boat.

We opted for the two-day, one-night cruise. You can do a two-night one but to be honest, we didn’t really see much point. You basically just cruise around the limestone karsts some more on that trip, maybe do some kayaking. Also, they might put you up in this minging tower block type hotel on Cat Ba island, which looked like an ageing Bates Motel-esque disgrace in the brochures.

We did get to see a cool cave and a floating village, but most of the time was spent eating the excellent food and making the most of the buy-two-get-one-free cocktails on the boat (ahem). They really did an awesome job on this one – we had fresh seafood, beef and chicken dishes all cooked to perfection, and the breakfast was eggs any way we wanted them, and Laughing Cow triangles, which is always a fave. They had more things than that but I just get excited about Laughing Cow and don’t tend to notice much else.

We paid $100 each for this cruise, with a bit of a discount for booking last minute. I wouldn’t pay more than that, but if you’re looking for the best option with great food, great cabins, great service and of course, the amaaaazing views of Halong Bay in Vietnam, you can’t get much better than this for the price.

Next stop, Sapa!