MANUTOPHY

Oooppsss!!!!! was to lazy to write.................
Viet Nam is a wonderful country, the time we spent in Halong Bay, were magical, just you, your friends and the boat, we stopped at some places, like paradise. It was not very sunny but just enough for us. We stayed 3 days and 2 night, sleeping under the stars on the deck is breath taking. We did a bit of swimming, but in some parts is was full of jelly fish, baaahhhhh.......
We spend a few days in Hanoi, crazy, crazy city, just scooter everywhere, going any places no right no left, very distrubing, don't know which way to look, after a day we just go for it, crossing the road without looking and it was them to make sure not to bump into us, funny but scary, ah as well traffic lights are just for decoration, I don't think so they understand red from green!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but the city is vibrant day and night, definitely a city to visit.

I am not going to write a lot just to let you know, i think the pictures are talking for themselves.

But Viet Nam is definitely a destination you should go to. The countryside, the people may be a bit rough but very nice and hard workers, more than the Thai.

We are going to go back over there for sure.

Three hours on the plane went very quick, we slept a bit even with the turbulance. Then we just past the passport control that all the little Vietnamiese are jumping on us to give some cards for hotels or others services, very annoying. But we did know where we were going for once!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So no panic we knew we needed to take the local bus 17 for only 50pence (1Hour travel) compare to the 7 pounds on taxi!!!! So we gave the guy a big note : cost 10.000 dong for the ride and gave him 100.000 dong very big amount of money over there. We just withdraw 2 million dong (50 POUNDS!!) we felt rich.................Come back to the story, so I gave him a big note and told me, well sign language, he didn,t have the change so we have to wait until the end of the trip, no problem for us.
Arriving at destination, go to see the guy for my money and he only gave us 35.000 dong back, should have been 90.000 dong, so I sign language that we needed more, he try to not understand so I had to take tje right amount from his own hands, incroyable!!!!!!!!!! welcome to tourist zone.........
We decided not to stay in hanoi straight away but to go north to SAPA 254 kms away in the mountains (1650m)
Arriving at the train station, whar a mess, people coming from everywhere.........We try to make ourself understand about the destination we wanted to go after 1 hour, one guy who was speaking english told us to go on the back of the main train station 10 minutes away, noproblem we took our big backpacks and went.

Thanksfully the man selling the tickets was speaking english, it was about 3pm, we ask kindly so tickets to go to Sapa with some soft seat, meaming what we ger in our train backin europe. But hey no more soft seat only hard seat, not really knowing what's hard was about uintil 10 pm, well hard seat is hard seat, like the train in the fifty's, just wooden seat for 11 hours with locals.............very nice. I think we slept 2/3 hours.

What an experience, in a way we are glad to have experience the 3rd class (we were the only foreigners).

xin chao

We finally arrive in destination. Straight on the search for a guest house with our lonely planet. Can you imagine 100 people looking for a guest house it's like having 100 girls running after Brad Pitt, crazyness......So we did find one closed by, small but clean. The architecture is so french, obviously Laos was occupied by France before. We meet with our friends from the boat far a little walk in town and something to eat and consulting what to do the next day.After the meal we went on a walk by night tour opf Luang Praban. Well we did get lost and tunr around for about 1 hour we did ask the local, but funny enough they had no clue either?????
The next day Mathieu and ourself uire a boat for the day with driver, Audrey & Sylvain had enough of the boat for the past 2 days......So we did the Pak Ou cave with more than four thousand statue of buddah inside, everywhere. then some more wat's and local villages. very nice day with a big storm as soon as we left the boat.lucky.
The next day Manu & myself wanted to be alone to see a bit more of the city but the weather was not very promising but we went anyway. After 2 hours walking a sudden rain wash the city while we were having a nice coffee and toast!!!
The food in Laos in wonderful and delicate, better than thailand and people even more friendly and smily.

See you in Vientiane.

Hello There,

Sorry I have been lazy to write anything lately, just to hot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But I am back beause we are now in north Viet Nam at 1600m in a village call Sapa, but first let me finish with Thailand. So after this superb week by the sea we are back in bangkok to take the train to Ayuthaya the old capital of Thailand, what a train!!!!!!!!! like in the 80" in Europe, 2 1/2 hours very slow machine but nice so we can enjoy the countyside. This is our first city to the north, full of wat (temples) and still very hot and humide. We are wandreing at night  (not too late) on the fresh market, small but feel more local than in Bangkok. the next day we treavelled 6 hours on bus to Philasunock, please no more Thai music and the worse is the TV paying karaoke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. In Philasunock we go visiting Suthokai another ancient city of the country and guest wat(humour!!!) yes a lot of wat's.....but the day was beautiful with a bit of wind, just pecfect to get some sunburn!!!! from there we went to the big city of Chiang Mai, 8hours of bus, smile, smile, smile, Thanks to Craig, My old boss, I could listen other music with my mp3 than Thai. We stayed 5 days in the city, we kind of like this city, a lot to offer and not as agressive as the big Bangkok. People here are a bit more civilized and definitely more smily. We done a lot of shopping, we sent home a 7kg parcel!!! 3 months to arrive. I even had two suit taylored for the prie of 180 pounds!!!!!!!!!! can you believe it and very good quality. We went to the zoo, w wanted to see some panda's check out the photos!! and we just enjoyed the city walking around, taking tuk tuk, taking easy.
From there we want to chiang rai, for a few days, we did a elephant ride and village tour with a guide, well worth it. It rain a bit, but not enough to stop us having fun. In the village we ask the guide if we could see the inside of an Akkah tribe house, so we went inside, well very organise and very simple, two rooms, one for the men and one from the women, then in the middle a fire place where they heat the food and that's it, and a few chicken running around, but tehy seems happy. I did by two bracelets form the lady to thanks for showing us her house.
They always smile, incredible......
from there we organised a tour to go Laos (Luang Praban) 2 days trip including bus and boat.

that's it for Thailand see you in the Laos section

Well, this is the last week in new zealand..........WQe are leaving Wanaka to Invercargill where our Friend Marion is living. The weather is terrible.......it's snowing as well. We find our little bacpackers and went to marion's place for a wonderfull lamb roast. hummmmmmmmmmmmm that was good. it was good to catch up with Marion. The next day we went through the catlins, very beautiful but waht a wind, my god very hard to stand on your own two feet...........We stayed in Dunedin with mean 'EDINBURGH' in Gaelic. Very old city nothing much to see. Then we went to Akaroa which is suppose to be a French Village, well true enough a lot of French name and French flag like we never saw before even in France. We arrived in the evening and my god we were running low in petrol and we were going from one mountain to the next with no sign of a gas station but luckily we found one, more like a little garage................The next day was perfect, sunshine no to much wind, we been lazy and woke up late.why not we are on hoildays!!!!!!!!! We walk around town, very very small town but apparently in the summer it's so busy you can't even park. The next day we went on a walk tound the mountain 4/5 hours, some more beautiful sceneries but the weather is not as good, never mind nothing is going to stop us. We stayed in a charming backpackers called "chez la mer" own by some americans from NY.
Then we drove to Christchuch for our last day in New Zealand and we stayed with our friends claire and stephen and their baby luka (1 year old) it was so nice to see them, catchin up again go and have a look at this address where stepen is working, beautiful wines www.muddywater.co.nz
The next day we set up for the airport to sydney then bangkok.
We left a beautiful country full of amazing sceneries and lovely people.

Now Asia we are coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!