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Sorry it's been a long time since I last posted a blog but we've been ever so busy over the past few weeks! So...Nah Trang was beautiful. It is a beach resort with a huge stretch of beach with plenty of sun loungers and umbrellas and people willing to charge you a fortune (a relative, 'on a tight budget' amount anyway) to have the pleasure of a day filled with sunbathing, and scuttling across the red hot sand to the sea to cool off. We spent 3 days there, taking a break, as it were, from the long bus journies and making the most of not being in the city envirnoment.
We took a boat tour on our second day to see some of the small island, to snorkel at the reefs and swim beside the boat drinking, what the captain of the boat described as "f***ing minging wine!" at a very loud volume from his floating bar whilst we all circled him in the safety rings from the boat screaming "Yo!' (Cheers!). A truely bizarre experience...and truely awful mulberry wine! We were fed a huge lunch though on the top of the boat, in the blazing sunshine and were taken to a man made beach where we had to pay to have the privilige of sitting on the very small beach.

Sorry I'm going to publish this then get back to it at a later date to fill in the details about South East Asia.

After our Cruise around Ha Long Bay we decided that we needed to see more of the city. We went to see the water puppetry (after a very long walk in the wrong direction before realising we'd walked right past the building we needed) which was....interesting. What made the night more amusing was Clare's questioning afterwards..."How did they get the fox from the water up the tree?!"...hard to explain why that question was so silly!
The next morning we were up early to go and see Ho Chi Minh's (Uncle Ho) body at the mausoleum... we just about made it on time, using very excitable taxi man and some cunning queuing techniques (just walk faster than the other people queuing). We were ushered into a giant pyramid tomb by very solemn looking guards (who 'shushed' Clare) and past the body of Uncle Ho. I didn't enjoy it at all, firstly because in his will Uncle Ho asked to be cremated but the government decided this was not what the people wanted, secondly, he didn't look real and thirdly Uncle Ho's museum was a very strange mix of art and propaganda which seemed more about symbolism and less about history. As Clare put it "It made my head hurt!".
We got a taxi back to the guest house and we're going to venture off to more things that afternoon but a trip to the post office to send things home took up practically all of our spare time (due to the copious amounts of paperwork involved in sending anything out of Vietnam!).
We caught our 12 hour night bus to Hue at 6pm... this bus was like nothing we'd seen before, it actually had beds in it and a toilet - which we sat too close to in hindsight! We grabbed to bottom bunks (for fear of falling off the top bunk due to Vietnamese driving skills) and settled into our journey before realising that someone had very stinky feet...
Hue was a very historical city with it's massive citadel and forbidden city (where the king stayed with his harem) which we walked to see on the morning we arrived. It was a very hot day so we spent most of our time trying to get from place to place via any shade that was available. As I said the citadel is huge, and there were even elephants you could go for a ride on, but it's also undergoing some restoration work so it looks a bit like a construction site in places. We also managed to get on TV as there were some people running around being chased by camera crews (it was possibly for a programme called The Greatest Race?!) and we were accosted by one of the girls shouting "Have you seen the check point?" to which we replied "The what?" and she said something about a giant red dot but the look on our faces must have been totally clueless as she darted off seconds later.
We had a late lunch at the Madarin Cafe and had a look down the many streets near our guest house before getting ready to go and try and find another bar we'd heard was a great place for travelers to visit. We failed to find it (this is becoming a recurring problem for us) and ended back in the Madarin Cafe for a beer before heading home.
In the morning we hired two xe oms (motorbike guides) to take us to one of the tombs (of king Tu Duc) and the Buddhist pagoda which was a fun way to see everything when you're in a hurry (the bus we needed to catch to Hoi An left at 1pm).
The bus to Hoi An was a short one (only 4 hours) and our first during the day for a while which made it interesting as we still had to sit/lie on the sleeper bus beds which made it impossible to sit upright. We busied ourselves with finishing off a packet of Ritz crackers and some Pringles and let out a few ooh's and aah's when we saw the South China sea.
Hoi An is a town mostly filled with tailors and shoe shops and as much as we didn't want to get anything made we ended up getting far too much. The protagonists of this shopping spree were the two South African girls we've known since our boat tour of Ha Long Bay who have a toy panda who walks and sings the Lambada as a traveling mascot...they showed us Panda in his coat made by the tailors and we just had to get things made! I got two pairs of light cotton trousers in brown and black and two Chinese style tops (which look fantastic) in red and in silver. And a pair of black flip flops which they actually measured my feet for so that the fit like a glove! Also the ladies from the tailors we used (Phong Cloth Shop) took us all out for dinner (for free) for buying lots of things and telling everyone to go to their shop (they had just opened their shop two days prior to us arriving!).
Around Hoi An are the Marble Mountain and China Beach (where American GI's spent their R and R time during the Vietnamese War...it was a beautiful beach with the most crystal clear water and white sand...we hired scooters with the South Africans from the guest house and took our time driving to see everything (ok, we got lost so we took the long way round!).
We spent two nights in Hoi An before heading off to the beach resort of Nah Trang on another 12 hour night bus... more on Nah Trang in the next blog!

It's still an ongoing affair...I'm a bit bored of it now and I'm tired of being in soaking wet clothes for the entire day! So today for Clare's birthday I booked us into a hotel behind the Khao San Road. It's called the Viengtai Hotel and I we have one of the best rooms in the place (not quite penthouse though and it cost 5400 Baht for 2 nights which isn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be....and we have a swimming pool! The room is lovely and there's even a TV and air-con that actually makes you feel freezing cold! It's a luxury existence compared to what we're used to.
Tonight we're trying to get away from the water fighting and we have devised a cunning plan involing carrying dry clean clothes and getting in a tuk tuk or a taxi to another district and changing out of our soggy stuff there! On a positive note I finally managed to get my flip flops dry today in the sun by the pool, however, the street is awash and they are damp yet again! Hopefully tomorrow on Clare's actual birthday things here will be a bit more normal!
We didn't make it to the red light district last night but maybe tonight we will...
Apart from the water and the clay they paint you with and me not being happy about being in large groups of people and being squirted repeatedly in the eyes (not good with contact lenses!) I'm having fun!

It's been a really sad day so far and it's really sinking in that I'm leaving everything behind just to go off travelling the world. I've quit my job, I'm working my last day of work for a long long time and I'm saying goodbye to people I've worked alongside for almost 3 years. It's a pretty upsetting day for me....there have been so many people who have been saying lovely things to me and I'm lost for words by peoples' generosity.
This is real! I'm leving to go around the world...in less than a week! Serious preparation is still needed....ahhhhhh! I think I'm still convinced that it's all just some mad dream I thought up a while ago and I'm really not going anywhere and I'll snap out of my daydream any second....Clare leaving on Saturday morning to go back to London FOREVER didn't really hit home because I've sat there all weekend just waiting for her to walk back into the flat...but she hasn't, she's at home, preparing, and packing, and shopping for stuff...
I on eht eother hand have been watching dvds, drinking rum and muttering about how bad tv over Easter has been (I mean, how many antiques shows do we need...really??!). I did attempt some packing yesterday though...it was a pretty haphazard attempt which culminated in me getting very annoyed by the amount of tat I have been hoarding and wondering if anyone would be willing to remove the entire contents of my room and take it all to the skip! AND how will I get all these things to the train station on Friday night? It baffles me...
Tomorrow is going to be a very strange day because it will be my last time plodding up and down Northumberland Street looking for the various bits and pieces I still have to buy for my trip (at least I was bought some flip flops, that would have taken my hours to make a decision on!!!). Then there's Thursday and my last night out in Newcastle for a long time... I'm sure it will be a messy affair with beers and tears!
Also on my mind today...how many times will I unpack and repack my backpack in the next couple of days?

I bought a backpack last weekend, it's great! I've added a picture which makes it look tiny but, to give you an idea of size, the little sticky out part with the Berghaus logo on is actually a day-pack which is the same size as a normal-size backpack that you would have used for school! When I tried it on in the shop (with two tents in it to give me an idea of weight!) the shop assistant sent me on a walk around the shop... I nearly knocked two people over when I turned around! I'm probably going to be that REALLY annoying tourist type, especially if I attached my daypack to the front of my backpack...and with me wanting to buy some geeky sandals instead of flip flops....I'm turning into someone's embarrassing dad!
Back to bag....It's 55 litres plus 15 (the day pack) and all the straps and everything can also be zipped up so it's better for all the flying as I've heard stories of backpacks getting stuck on conveyor belts and then having to be cut free making the bag useless!

Obviously, I'm far too excited about the backpack...but it is lovely! I also bought some new board shorts and some bikinis and I need sandals/flip flops (am I going to be cool or comfy??!) too before I go.
I think we've decided that taking the bare minimum is the best plan and picking cheap stuff up along the way. There's no point paying loads for these things when they'll be a third of the price there....unless I go to Primark and stock up on £1.50 t-shirts?!

We're staying in Singapore for a couple of nights to acclimatise ourselves. We're also not going for the cheapest hostel either just in case 'roughing it' is too much for us in the first few days! The hostel we're keen on is called The InnCrowd (link below) which is in Little India
http://www.the-inncrowd.com/

It's not the most expensive but it's had some good reviews from people who've stayed there.

We've done loads of other research and planning on the rest of our adventure but I can't put it all in this post. At least we know where we'll be for the first couple of days then we'll have a clearer plan where to go next when we're there and talking to other packpackers!

Oh and we've discovered they have disposable mobiles out there in vending machines...I'm not entirely sure how they are disposable or what use they are but we're thinking they might be safer...although I'm still keen on taking mine with me!