On the road

Hi all. We're in Hue at the moment, which is in the middle of Vietnam. It used to be the capital, and has an old walled city which we visited yesterday - its a bit like a mini version of Beijing's Forbidden City, but a lot smaller and less impressive. The Hue version suffered a lot of damage in various wars and is being rebuilt in a number of places. Still an interesting place to visit though.

 

We're off to Hoi An this afternoon. We've been doing a bit too much moving around so far and hopefully will stay there for a few days - its supposed to be a lovely town close to a beach, so we should be able to have a nice relax. We haven't spent two nights in the same place for ages - in fact our last 9 nights have been spent in a hotel, boat, hotel, train, hotel, train, hotel, bus and hotel respectively! The night in the bus was probably the least comfortable, but at least it had beds in it. The only problem was that the roads were very bumpy so we spent the whole night bouncing up and down.

 

We're really enjoying Vietnam, and everything has gone pretty smoothly. The only hiccups have been Mark's camera breaking (was a few years old and have bought a better replacement) and leaving our Lonely Planet in Hanoi! The Lonely Planet is a bible to travellers, and we were a bit lost without it, but it was actually quite refreshing to have to explore Hue un-aided and to find somewhere to stay and eat by following our noses. Having said that we picked up a pirate version of the book last night though, so its back to normal from now on.

 

Bye.

 

 

 

 

A few photos from Sapa

OK then, as promised here are a few photos from our weekend in Sapa. This one is pretty typical of the rice fields cut into the mountainside :














This is us beside a river on one of our treks...














And this is June with a couple of the H'mong girls.



For more photos, check out our Flickr site (link on the right).

Minority Report

Hi everyone. Thanks for adding your comments to the messages below - we always enjoy hearing from you.

 

We've spent the last two days in Sapa, a beautiful mountain town in the north of Vietnam, not far from the Chinese border. The area is populated by ethnic minority hill tribes, dressed in their brightly coloured traditional clothes. The area is stunning - tiered rice fields cut into the side of steep mountains, the tops of which disappear in the mist. We've actually had 2 days of unbroken sunshine which has been great, but which has made the trekking very hot work!

 

The locals are very friendly but they are continually trying to sell tourists their embroidery, which gets a bit wearing after a while. We've made a few purchases (including a new bracelet you'll be glad to hear Keith), although we've tried to not load ourselves down too much so early in our journey!

 

We feel a bit sorry for the minorities here. Although they live in a beautiful place they seem to spend their whole time (from 6 to 60 years old) pestering tourists. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't all competing with each other - they all sell exactly the same goods. Maybe a bit of diversification might help? Having said that, they are apparently a lot wealthier than they were just a few years ago, so they must be doing something right.

 

OK then, its back on the train to the hustle and bustle of Hanoi tonight. We'll try to upload some pictures of Sapa when we get back. Bye!

 

On our bikes

Hi everyone! We haven't posted in a couple of days as we've been on a boat, cruising round Ha Long Bay. Its an amazingly beautiful place - lots of limestone pinnacles, a bit like Yangshou in China or Krabi in Thailand but on a larger scale.

The weather has been interesting! Each morning it gets hotter and hotter until there is a monumental rain storm that lasts about 30 mins. We've been caught in it for the last 3 days, and are getting used to being drenched either with sweat or water.

Today we discovered yet another way of getting wet. On a bike ride on Cat Ba island our guide suggested we take the "low road" across the island. Little did we realise that because of the rain the low road was actually the "submerged road"! We cycled as best we could until the water started rising above knee level, and then had to resort to pushing our bikes through waist deep water (my waist, not June's!). It was a really funny experience, made even better by the fact that it started to p!ss down as soon as we came out of the water.....

What else to report? We're really enjoying the food and beer, although drinking snake wine today was an experience due to the presence of a (dead) snake at the bottom of the bottle. Tomorrow we head back to Hanoi and then on an overnight train to Sapa, which is a mountainous area inhabited by Hill Tribes.

June is coping admirably without hair-straighteners and we're both having a fantastic time, although had a brief home-sick moment yesterday.

We'll try to upload some more photos when we get the chance - the ones from the first 2 days in Hanoi are here :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markfuhrmann/sets/72157601933580365/

bye

Hot in Hanoi

Another day, another country!

After a jet-lag interrupted night's sleep we flew up to Hanoi this morning, and have had a quick wander through the hot, busy and colourful streets. Everyone seems really friendly and apparently beer is 10p a glass, so we should have a great time here!

The weather is very hot and sticky - luckily our hotel has AC. There seems to be free internet / wi-fi everywhere, so there'll be no escaping us!

Off to have a wander round ho Hoan Kiem lake now.....

One night in Bangkok

June taking a dip in the rain!
Originally uploaded by mark&june

We're here! The flight went very smoothly and we've spent the evening relaxing in our hotel. A little taste of luxury before the hardships ahead!

Just off to have a Thai meal and then to bed before flying to Hanoi in the morning.

And they're off!

So this is it. In 30 minutes we get picked up by Sally and head for Heathrow.

Today has been a bit stressful - lots to do and to pack. Once we head off we can start relaxing and looking forward to the excitement ahead.

As you can see from the photo, June managed to get everything in a backpack with no problems!

Hopefully we'll be able to post from Bangkok or Hanoi to let you know we've arrived safely.

Bye!

The Last Day

Today was our last day at work.

Its hard to describe how I feel right now. There's a real mixture of emotions - sadness and loss, but also a real sense of excitement at what is to come.

The best thing about working at NU was definitely the people - we'll miss not seeing the good friends we've made every day. This video is a reminder of some of them....

Not long to go now!

Well, time has really flown over the last few months and we suddenly find ourselves with less than 3 weeks to go until we depart. Scary!

We are fairly well organised but still have a long "To Do" list which we are slowly working our way through. Its amazing how much there is to do before you can head off round the world for 8 months.

The itinerary is pretty well sorted out now. We have 5 weeks in SE Asia, starting in Hanoi and then working our way south through Vietnam and then crossing into Cambodia. The highlight of this leg of the trip will probably be Angkor Wat (above), but it looks like there will be so much to do and see there.

In the middle of October we fly to Perth where we'll spend a couple of weeks exploring Western Australia and visiting June's aunt Jean. Then its on to Darwin, Cairns and Sydney, before driving round the "bottom right" of Australia, through Melbourne and Adelaide and then up through the outback to Uluru and Alice Springs. We're really looking forward to visiting friends and family in Melbourne and Adelaide, and spending Christmas with the Steeles!

In mid-Jan we fly on to New Zealand, and have a couple of months to expore the islands. We will probably get a camper van for much of the time. We've both wanted to go to NZ for a really long time - June because of the scenery, Mark because of Lord of the Rings!

The final leg of the tour through South America starts in Chile and ends in Rio two months later. We're not too sure what we want to do yet, although Patagonia and the Iguassu Falls are definitely on the list. The Argentinian steaks might be worth a try too!

The current plan is to arrive back home in mid May......

The flights are booked!

After a few months of procrastinating we've finally got around to booking our flights!

We've gone for a Qantas / BA round the world ticket (surprisingly good value), and we're planning to visit Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia, NZ, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. We'll probably be away for about 8 months all told.

We still have loads of planning to do. All we know is when we are flying where. Now the hard work begins in trying to work out what we want to see, where we want to stay, how we want to get around etc. Its pretty exciting, but at the same time it's difficult to find the time to really do the research. Despite being almost redundant work is still pretty busy, but hopefully things will begin to ease up soon.

Really beginning to look forward to it now.....