Ross & Lori

The last destination on our travels was one of the most breath-taking we've seen - the Angkor Temples near Siem Reap.

We arrived at sunrise to avoid the heat and our first glimpse of Angkor Wat's soaring towers was incredible. Built in 1150 for the Hindu God Vishnu, the temple (which took 30 years to complete) has five majestic towers at its centre.

But it was the intricate detail of the architecture in every nook and cranny of its corridors and ceilings that we were most amazed by. Bas reliefs cover all the walls telling stories of how the Khmer people lived and fought their enemies.

The nearby walled city of Angkor Thom has a very grand entrance with two lines of Buddhas holding giant serpants leading to the tall gateway.

The gates are topped with four stone faces, designed to look in each direction at the King's people. The ancient city is huge at 3km square with a giant moat stretching round it outside the walls.

One of our favourite temples was Ta Prohm, the setting for the Tomb Raider movies, which has enormous kapok trees growing from its terraces and walls, framing doorways and prising apart giant stones. As a Buddhist monastry, it once housed 12,000 people who lived and worked there.

The temples, which were abandoned in the mid 1400s when Thai armies invaded, were rediscovered by a Frenchman 150 years ago. Archeologists from around the world are still painstakingly piecing together the old buildings and walls - the huge piles of rocks look like a giant jigsaw puzzle as experts try to fit the carvings on them together.

After a couple of days in Siem Reap, we took our last bus journey to Bangkok. It was fitting in a way then that it was one of the longest and most uncomfortable we've had - 12 hours in total, two hours of which were spent in a boiling hot immigration queue on the Thai border.
We didn't find much to eat either - at the roadside cafe they were selling boiled turtle!

We've spent the last week in Bangkok, having fun on the touristy Khao San Road and shopping in the local markets. We also went to a Muay Thai boxing match which seems to be a lot more brutal than traditional boxing as they are allowed to knee and headbutt their opponent - one of the contestants was only 16 fighting a 34 year old!

This week the 'red shirts' have been increasing their protests and the malls and luxury hotels have been barriered up by the riot police as more are expected today, we hope it doesn't effect our flight home tonight.

We can't believe how quickly the year has gone and feel sad that it's the end of our journey. It's been an amazing year and thanks to all of you for following it on here with us. We're really looking forward to seeing you and will try and bring some of the hot weather home with us!

That's All Folks...... (Until the next time!).

xxxx

Our ancient bus was like a giant rocking horse as it lurched us over the border between Vietnam and Cambodia, so it was no surprise when it gave up and ground to a halt in a puff of smoke 20 km away from our destination of Kep. Incredibly, after all the buses we've taken, it was the first time one has broken down!

After a long wait while it was fixed (and a dodgy moment when a snake crawled up the driver's shoe!), the bus reluctantly chugged us into the coastal town of Kep - a few minutes after dropping us off we heard a huge bang and saw it rolling back down the hill again!

Kep was once an affluent riviera-like resort for the rich and glamorous, but its beautiful villas were burned to the ground by the Khmer Rouge who loathed anything bourgeouise. It's taking a long time for the town to get back on its feet and blacked out shells of once majestic houses are still dotted around the area, many of them inhabited by squatters. Some are just huge bullet-marked walled enclosures with beautiful gardens and views out to sea but no house left standing inside.

Kep is slowly rising from the ashes though and Khmer people from Phnom Penh flock there at weekends for its famous crab market. The crabs are served up in ramshackle wooden hut restaurants backing onto the black pebbly beach where they are caught. We had fried crab with Kampot pepper - a local delicacy - and it was so delicious we had it for lunch and dinner for two days!

When we'd finally had enough crab, we moved further along the coast to Kampot - an old riverside town with a lingering French colonial feel. It has wide streets with decaying villas in pastel colours and a very relaxed atmosphere - perfect for sipping cocktails by the river as the sun went down over the mountains.

We then headed north to the tiny village of Srey Siam in Kampong Cham province where we'd arranged to do a homestay so we could learn about rural Cambodian life.

We were greeted by two smiley children shouting "Hello my name is Ra!", "Hello my name is Na!", as they stretched out their hands to welcome us to their home.

First off we were shown to our room - a hut in the garden made from banana leaves with a thatched roof, which was simple but very comfortable. The family home is quite big but basic with no electricity, flushable toilet or hot water.

The children's mum Kheang was born in the village but her husband Don, who was her English teacher, is American.

We had heard that Kheang's food is some of the best in Cambodia and we soon realised that wasn't an understatement when we were served up a delicious feast of local food for lunch.

Kheang and six-year-old Na then took us for a long walk through the fields and rice paddies behind their house. Nearly all the families in the village grow their own rice, which they eat for every meal, and we were introduced to the farmers who explained to us (with Kheang as interpreter) how they grow and harvest their crops, leaving enough each year to see them through the rainy season.
It was searingly hot, around 36 degrees, and after just a couple of hours walking I felt dizzy - embarassing as the locals work so physically hard in the sun every day.

A farmer sleeps in this simple bed so he can be near his crops.

The next day we went out on bicycles to explore the nearby villages. Kheang seems to know everyone, and they all like and trust her which made it easy for us to talk to them and learn about their lives. She took us to meet a family who earn their living making palm sugar - a laborious process of boiling down the sap for four hours then stirring it while it cools. They make just $14 dollars a day between the family of six.

We also went to the local temple where we were able to talk to the monks. One, who was sixteen during the Pol Pot regime, told us how the monks had to shed their orange robes and pretend to be normal people or they would be killed by the Khmer Rouge who hated religion.

When one of the bikes got a puncture, we got to have a much-needed drink of sugar cane juice mixed with lime and pineapple. It was so refreshing (and cheap at 12p per glass) we had three each!

That evening, Kheang's mum Heang came to the house to speak to us about her experiences of the brutal Khmer Rouge period in the early 1970s. Being farmers, her village didn't suffer the worst of the regime, but they still had to work on the cooperative farms and abide by strict rules. They would work up to 20 hours a day on the fields while being fed just one bowl of water with a few grains of rice twice a day. She said they could not talk openly or criticise their new leaders because there were spies who would report them. They lived in terror as soldiers would turn up day or night and take people away for "reeducation", but they would never return.

The Khmer Rouge didn't believe in families and Kheang, who was just six at the time, was separated from her parents and sent to a camp with other children to work on a dam building project. She was starving as they were given almost nothing to eat so she ran home to eat a banana. As punishmwent, she was forced to work in the fields on her own through the night.

Kheang is also an English teacher, and the next evening we led one of her classes. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end, as we were left alone with seven wide-eyed students waiting for us to learn! It ended up with Ross drawing questionable pictures of crabs and peppercorns on the whiteboard - not sure that will help them too much in the future, but we tried!

We learnt quite a lot through them though (with Kheang translating again). One of the students is a primary school teacher and told how they are desperately short on supplies, with five children having to share just one textbook. Most children only go to school for half a day as they have to help their parents to earn money.

The next day we headed to Phnom Penh where we visited the notorious S21 prison. Up to 20,000 people were incarcerated and tortured there - only seven survived. Mostly their only crime was being an "intellectual" such as a teacher or a doctor, or even just that they wore glasses (a sign that they were "vain" and wanted to make themselves look more attractive).

The prison used to be a school, but the monkey bars the children once played on were turned into a vile torture method. Prisoners were strung up until they lost consciousness then plunged headfirst into sewage water to give them the sensation of drowning.

In some of the smaller cells there was still blood on the floor and photographs showed the gory scenes that met Vietnamese troops when they liberated the capital in 1979.

We are now in Siem Reap to visit the ancient temples of Angkor- it's our last stop before we head to Bangkok for our flight home. Can't believe it's been a year!

High Point: Learning about rural Cambodia at Rana Homestay
Low Point: Ross getting a fever and shivering in 40 degree heat.
Cost of a double room: $15
Cost of a local beer: Angkor - 30p a pint
Favourite meal: Pork ribs and rice at Rana - served with the spiciest chile we've had!

Craving a bit of easy living for a few days, we headed to the busy beach resort of Nha Trang which draws the tourists because of its stunning beach and nearby coral islands. It wasn't long though before we got tired of the crowds and bad Western-style food, so we got back on the road to head for Saigon.

When we arrived after the 12 hour bus ride, we were so tired we forgot our number one lesson when arriving in a new place - to always check on the map where we are! So we jumped in the nearest cab, happy enough that it was on a meter. It was only when we noticed the cabbie was taking us in a huge circle ending about 20 metres from where the bus had dropped us off that we realised we'd been royally robbed. The meter was also tampered, as the journey cost us about five times what it should have! Oh well.

Despite that incident, we loved Saigon with its bright lights, chaotic motorbike traffic and maze-like Ben Thanh market where we ate soup with the biggest prawns we've ever seen.

We visited "Reunification Palace" where on April 30, 1975, a North Vietnamese tank stormed the palace gates, becoming the defining moment in the fall of Saigon. The same restored tank now stands in the palace gardens.

The most interesting part of the palace, which is like a time capsule from the 60s, was the basement which served as the command centre and has archaic radio equipment and strategic wall maps still in place. The President's war-time bedroom is still there exactly as it was - hard to imagine an American or British leader sleeping somewhere like this!

We had a look around the War Remnants Museum too (formerly called the "American War Atrocities Against Vietnam Museum"!). It is incredibly anti-American and very grisly - with foetuses of deformed Agent Orange babies preserved in pickling jars - but really interesting all the same.

Despite our best efforts, we couldn't find a way of going south to the Mekong Delta easily on a local bus so we decided to go on the insanely cheap $9 tour organised by our hotel, and just not come back.

The Delta is a criss-crossing of nine channels of the Mekong River as it heads out to sea and looks like a dragon from the air (to the Vietnamese it is known as the "Nine Dragons"). It is Vietnam's rice bowl, providing 38 per cent of the country's food crop, but also serves as an important transportation artery teeming with rowing boats, ferries and floating markets.

Not surprisingly our cheap tour was pretty dull, taking us on a boat trip along the edge of the Delta where we saw practically nothing and stopping at a tourist cafe for lunch (where we were made to listen to folk music that sounded like a cat wailing!) . The best bit of the day was a visit to a coconut candy factory - it was delicious and we made ourselves feel sick scoffing a whole packet in no time!

We decided to stay the night in the laid-back island town of Ben Tre. To the shock of the tourists looking out the coach windows, we put on our backpacks and started walking off up the road where our guide had told us we'd find a guesthouse in just 200 metres.
But - after half an hour sweating in the baking heat on the dusty main road, we still hadn't found a hotel. We gave up and feeling a bit grumpy by now, sat on our bags at the side of the road not knowing what to do. Luckily a local woman and her son passed us on motorbikes us and offered us a lift to the nearest hotel (after a lot of charades to work out where we were going) - which turned out to be 12 KM AWAY!

After settling in, we decided to explore the town. We had yet another stroke of luck when a man on a motorbike stopped to say hello, as they don't often see tourists there. Chris was born in London then moved to Australia and now lives three months a year in Ben Tre with his Vietnamese wife. He very kindly bought us an ice tea at the local market, introduced us to his wife Tina, then showed us around town.

It was hilarious watching the awe-struck children shout "Hello" at us then dissolve into fits of giggles when we responded. Tourism hasn't really reached Ben Tre yet and the local people seemed happy and proud that we'd made the effort to go there.

We had dinner at a local restaurant - avoiding the turtle and snake on the menu! - then spent a nice evening talking to Chris and Tina and helping the restaurant owner practice her English.

The next day we set off for the Delta's biggest city, Can Tho which is renowned for its floating markets. With Tina's advice, we managed to get ourselves on a local bus to the next main town of My Tho for 25p but found we had missed the bus onwards from there as the only one left at 5am! That meant we had to face the private minibus saga again. So we got a motorbike taxi to the main highway and flagged down a bus - unsurprisingly he quoted us the ridiculous price of 200 Dong each (£6.50) for the journey, but when we laughed at him he lowered it to 150 Dong between us. We're getting better at this!

At Can Tho, we bartered for a small motor boat owned by the lovely Loan and for £7 each she took us on an eight hour journey through the Delta. We were so tired when we got up at 5am, but it was worth it for the magnificent sun rise we saw over the Mekong River.

Loan took us to the Cai Rang market which sells anything your average villager could need, from fruit and veg to haircuts and coffins! Each boat's produce is advertised by a sample hanging on a bamboo mast in its bow. The water is heaving with an armada of boats which Loan skillfully navigated and we bought some delicious fresh coconuts to drink from as we continued down the river.

We stopped at a rice noodle factory where we saw how they grind the rice into liquid, cook it like pancakes then, after letting it dry in the sun for a few hours, put it through a machine by hand to make noodles.

It was fascinating rowing through the maze of canals watching life on the river - we got a bit stuck at one point though as the water was low and one of the villagers had to pull us out!

Can Tho has a fun, buzzing atmosphere and in the evenings we ate at the market overlooking the river which sells delicious, fresh seafood and noodles. It has a modern touch though, as KFC has a mobile stall there!

After all that moving around (I know, poor us!), we decided it was time for a rest on the beach so we headed for the island of Phu Quoc off Vietnam's south coast. On the bus we met a lovely man called Dang who was learning English. We spent the three hour journey talking to him about life in Vietnam and our lives in England to help him practice. He earns $250 a month as an electrical engineer, a good wage in Vietnam, and spoke of how the Vietnamese are striving hard to move on from the past of the war and make good lives for themselves.

When the bus dropped us at the port town, Dang put us in the care of a smiley elderly woman who was going to the island too. She spoke no English, but looked after us so well, sorting our boat tickets, sitting with us and insisting we use her fan to keep cool!

Phu Quoc housed a brutal prison during the war where the Americans brought Viet Cong soldiers to torture and kill. We visited the old site which has recently opened up as a museum. It still has the "tiger cages" filled with barbed wire where up to five prisoners were left to bake in the sun, unable to lie down.

Other torture techniques included chiselling out teeth, crushing their chest bones in a clamp and removing the knee caps.

Today Phu Quoc is a very different place. We hired a motorbike to explore the island and came across one of the most beautiful beaches we've ever seen, called Bai Sao translating to "ice cream beach" because of the creamy white sound that melts under your toes.

The rocky dirt road along the coast was hard work on the bike, but the views of secluded beaches, bamboo fishermans' shacks and out to sea were spectacular.

We then spent the evening watching the sun go down over the water while we ate barbequed snapper at a candlelit wooden table.

We are staying in a basic bamboo room beside the beach and spending some very lazy days reading. We were enjoying swimming in the sea too - until a crab decided to clamp Ross's little toe in its pincers, drawing blood and causing him to hop out of the sea holding his foot!

On Sunday we are heading into Cambodia for our last few weeks. We will be sad to leave Vietnam - we've tried hard to get around as the locals do rather than take tourist buses, and have had to be on guard more than anywhere else for people ripping us off. The country's difficult past has caused greediness in some people trying to get money from "rich" Westerners. But at the same time we have met some of the most selfless, warm and friendly people willing to help us and ask nothing in return.

Hope you are all well and we look forward to seeing you very soon.

Lots of love from us both xxxxx

After our experiences of cramped buses in Vietnam, we were amazed to find we had a full bed each on our bus to Hoi An! It was a bit weird for a three hour trip (which would have taken an hour if it didn't pick everyone up at their hotel then stop for lunch!), but we weren't complaining.

We really enjoyed our few days in the historic city of Hoi An - many of its buildings date back to the 16th century when the French ruled the country. The old city feels really peaceful with pastel-coloured houses reflected in the river, colourful shops and rows of red lanterns lining the streets.

We hired some ancient looking bikes and rode out to a gorgeous nearby beach, and had some great food at the local restaurants.

Hoi An is also renowned for its tailor shops (there are over 300 in the centre!) which handmake any kind of suit, coat or dress you could dream of. It was a bit stressful looking round as the shop workers don't leave you alone, shouting "you buy something?", "what you like?" repeatedly.
But we decided we couldn't pass up the opportunity so we braved the hard sell at 'Kimmy's' and Ross ordered some shirts. We were a bit nervous as the quality varies so much between the shops, but the finished shirts (which cost about £10 each) were an amazing fit and great material.

We resisted the temptation to fill our rucksacks with suits and dresses though (only just!) and decided to move south to Quang Ngai the next day.

But getting there wasn't quite as easy as we'd hoped. No-one seemed to want to tell us how to get a public bus rather than an 'tourist' one (our hotel receptionist said "the locals don't go there as it's not convenient", whatever that means!), so we decided to take a motorbike taxi to the main highway and hail one down ourselves from there.

Then we faced being ripped off with a tourist price just because we are Western, which we've found happens a lot in Vietnam.
We knew the journey should cost 50,000 Dong (about £1.60), but when the first minibus stopped they wanted twice that and when we tried to haggle, it just drove off. After a few more unsuccessful goes, we decided to just cut our losses and get on one.

We hadn't been going long when our driver got in a fist fight with a rival minibus driver - they were shouting and punching each other in the face while driving along!
It made the journey even more hair-raising than it already was - driving in Vietnam can only be described as complete carnage. There are more motorbikes and scooters on the road than anything else, and there are no rules of the road - the theory seems to be just drive at something with your hand on the horn, even at busy junctions, and it will get out of your way - hopefully!

Our next problem came just 10km from our destination when we were the only two passengers left on the bus, and the drivers decided they didn't want to carry on with only us. So they stopped, had some lunch, then turned the bus around to go back where we'd come from! We got them to let us off to join another minibus, which we had to forcibly persuade our driver to pay for as we'd already paid him.
This one was rammed full and we were both half hanging out the open door just to fit in!

We were relieved to finally get to Qiang Ngai, despite it being a dirty and ugly-looking city. Our only reason for going there was to visit the nearby village of My Lai - it is where the most shameful chapter of America's involvement in the Vietnam War took place. We had been both felt moved by the tragedy when we read of it and wanted to go to the place where it happened.

In just three hours on March 16, 1968, 504 innocent Vietnamese civilians were killed in cold blood by US troops. Intelligence suggested that communist Viet Cong soldiers were holed up in My Lai and Charlie Company, led by Lieutenant William Calley, was sent to flush them out.

In the previous four months in Vietnam the company had suffered many casualties and losses, but all by snipers and booby-traps. They were getting frustrated at being unable to fight the enemy face-to-face, or to even tell civilians apart from the Viet Cong. My Lai offered them the chance to let off some steam and settle scores.

On the eve of the mission, GIs were told that all civilians would be at market by 7am and that anyone remaining was bound to be an active Viet Cong soldier or sympathiser. Some GIs later remembered being told not to kill women and children, but most simply registered that there were to be no prisoners. Whatever the truth, a massacre ensued.

Soldiers crept up on the tiny village through the surrounding paddy fields as dawn broke.

The attack quickly fell into mayhem with soldiers gunning down unarmed men, women, children and babies. One soldier missed a baby lying on the ground twice with a .45 pistol as his mates laughed. So he stood over the child and fired a third time at point blank range.
Families which huddled together for safety in huts or bunkers were shown no mercy. Men who bowed to the Americans as they arrived were punched in the head and stabbed with bayonets. The soldiers beat women with rifle butts and raped some before shooting them.

They shot the farm animals and threw them into the water to poison the supply, destroyed food and furniture, blew up bomb shelters and burned down the houses.

Not one shot was fired at the US troops in response (no men of fighting age were found in the village), and the only US casualty deliberately shot himself in the foot to avoid taking part in the carnage. No Viet Cong were found in the village. Afterwards, the US soldiers sat calmly sat and laughed about the destruction they had caused.

A helicopter pilot called Hugh Thompson saw the killing spree and was so appalled that he decided to take action. He bravely put his helicopter down between the US troops and villagers and ordered his men to shoot their fellow Americans if they attacked the civilians. He managed to airlift nine villagers to safety.

The massacre was initially covered up by the military but one year later, thanks mostly to Thompson and pictures taken on the day by army photographer Ron Haeberle, the truth surfaced. It caused a seachange in American opinion about the war and led to mass protests.

Of 25 men eventually charged with murder over the massacre, or for its subsequent suppression, only Lieutenant William Calley was found guilty, though he had served just three days of a life sentence of hard labour when president Nixon intervened and commuted it to house arrest. Three years later he was paroled.

It felt surreal to be standing in the place where all of that happened. Daily life in rural Vietnam hasn't changed that much since then - as we rode to the village through beautiful scenery we passed farmers peacefully working in the rice paddies just as they would have done on that fateful day.

At the site now, there is a memorial statue with a woman defiantly clenching her fist and holding a baby as her family die at her feet.

The US military bombed the village in an attempt to destroy the evidence of their crimes, but the scene has been recreated to reflect the aftermath of that day. Burnt-out shells of homes stand in their original locations, each marked with a plaque listing the names and ages of the family that once resided there.

There is also a museum which has a marble list of everyone who died and their ages (many were under five years old).

The photographs taken on the day were distressing to see, but the display ends on a positive note with testimonies of local people rebuilding their lives after liberation.

It was a hard journey to get to My Lai, but we were glad we made the effort.

The next morning we braved the shared minibus experience again and it was just as horrible as the day before. As we got in, we agreed a price of 50,000 dong for the three hour journey south to Qui Nhon, which we were feeling really pleased with ourselves about.
But as soon as we pulled off, the driver started demanding 500,000! When we refused, saying we'd just take our bags and get off, he snatched money from Ross's hand. He then had 250,000 from us which we knew was way too much - but for the rest of the way he used every tactic he could think of to get more, first shouting then massaging Ross's neck and begging him!

We held our ground and thankfully made it all the way to Qui Nhon, where we found a great hotel overlooking the sea. It's run by a New Zealand woman called Barbara who is the font of all knowledge in the town.

We couldn't book another bus onwards for another three days (because of the New Year celebrations - yes, still!) but it wasn't such a bad thing as we've had great fun exploring the coast here on a motorbike.

First we visited some temple ruins from the Cham dynasty, an imperial kingdom from the 4th to 13th century - it's amazing they are still standing after the heavy bombing raids of the war.

We were delayed for a while afterwards as I locked myself in the toilet - after trying for about half an hour to open the door and Ross getting his penknife out saying he could pick the lock, a man came over and just kicked the door down!
I then had another mishap when we stopped to buy some coconuts... as I got off the bike, I hit my leg on the searing hot exhaust and it peeled off my skin right down to the flesh. Ouch!

After getting my leg bandaged up, we rode along the coastal road with lush green mountains and palm trees on one side and the stunning South China Sea on the other.

We stopped at Bai Bau beach, a beautiful sandy cove which was nearly deserted. We didn't swim though as a shark had taken a bite out of a man's leg here just a few days before!

It was lovely peace and quiet, until a group of local guys arrived and excited to see some white people, started taking pictures of us with their mobile phones!

Tomorrow we're moving on again to Nha Trang, further along the coast (and on a tourist bus this time!), for more February days on the beach (sorry!).

Hope all is well back home, we miss you all.

Lots of love xxxx

High point: Finding the hard journey worthwhile by learning about the My Lai massacre.
Low point: Trying to travel like the locals, but always finding there's a "local" price and a tourist one - paying double for the same journey.
Cost of a double room: £6.50
Cost of a local beer: Saigon 20p
Favourite meal: Pork in ginger and honey sauce, Tam Tam's, Hoi An.

Hey everyone,

The Vietnam New Year didn't make things easy for us, but it also made for one of our most adventurous journeys to date.

We hit our first stumbling block trying to leave Savannakhet when we got to the bus station to be told the only bus going to Xepon, a village near the Laos border with Vietnam, was "broken" (the same thing we'd been told for three days running).
We were pointed towards a local market instead, where there were rows and rows of songthaews (pickup trucks used as shared taxis) and before we knew it, our bags were being hauled on to one going our way.

The songthaews are never a fast process though - they don't leave until they are full, so it was over an hour before we finally set off crammed into the back with 10 other people, some bags of rice, a bamboo plant, a motorbike and a puppy!

As most foreigners take an international coach straight to Vietnam, we were a real novelty to the locals and they had great fun prodding our skin and holding their arms against ours to see the colour difference - but always with a friendly grin on their faces. The driver found it so unusual to have some white people on board, he even drove us round to his mate at a nearby shop to point us out!

We did go a bit hungry that day though, as the lunch stop was at a market stall which only sold barbequed baby chickens (with head still on) and grilled cockroaches on a stick. Yuck!

After five hours, which cost just £2.50 each, we were dropped off on a hot, dusty road lined with bamboo houses - Xepon. The village doesn't see many tourists, but after asking around we thankfully managed to find somewhere to stay for the night.

The old town of Xepon, nestled beneath the Annimite Mountains, was obliterated during the Vietnam War, along with every house in the surrounding two hundred villages. It's position on the Ho Chi Minh Trail made it a prime target for the Americans trying to flush out communist soldiers. It is the most bombed place in the world and the surrounding countryside is still littered with unexploded ordinance - every few minutes, we saw government 'bomb clearance' trucks roll past.

That night we had one of our most memorable dinners. We stumbled on a little cafe, which other than the 'beerlao' sign outside, looked more like someone's living room - there were only a couple of tables and no menu. The family who run it were eating their own dinner and seeing us looking unsure of what to do, they served us up a plate of their own food to see if we liked it. We gave it the thumbs up, so they set off to get us the same thing.

At the centre of our table, they put a bowl of stock over a pot of red hot coals. They also brought us some noodles, five eggs, a huge bowl of vegetables, chilies and various meats (which looked like chicken skin and kidneys but it's best not to know!). You just put the various ingredients into the boiling stock in whichever order you fancy. We made a bit of a mess cooking everything but it was so delicious - and cost just £1 each!

The next morning, with the help of the village schoolteacher, we got ourselves on a songthaew bound for the Vietnam border. This time the truck was so full, we had to stand on the back hanging onto some rails.

It was great fun driving through the villages watching the shock on childrens' faces when they saw us - they'd either stand and point at the 'white people', or shout for their families and all jump up and down with joy when we waved at them.

We also had a great view of the landscape which is still scarred from the war - the whole area was carpet bombed and sprayed with defoliant to destroy any trees the enemy might use for cover. The trees have started to grow back but there are still huge craters in the soil and over the rivers, we saw the remains of bombed out bridges.

There were some brilliant characters on our truck - a man kitted out in full US Army gear, and a matriarchal woman smoking a pipe who climbed on with some live chickens in a basket and bags of vegetables. As soon as she got on board, the other women started opening all her bags to inspect the contents, including pulling the poor chickens out by their wings.

We enjoyed the ride so much, we were a bit disappointed to get off at the border. But we were in for another unusual ride as the only 'taxi' we could find was a motorbike, which we had to get on - along with our packs - to be taken to immigration!

As soon as we walked into Vietnam, the friendliness went and we soon found ourselves at the mercy of a minibus tout. Lao Bao (the Vietnam border town) was like a ghost town because of the New Year, so we were forced to try to negotiate for the only bus around. The guy was trying to charge us what we knew was an extortionate amount but after much arguing, we settled on a price and got in. It wasn't long though before they went back on the deal and feeling very uncomfortable by this point, we forced our way out of the van, got our bags and walked away. The driver, along with a man on a motorbike, followed us shouting and we kept having to cross the road to get away from them.

When we got to the bus station it was completely deserted, but luckily we caught sight of another minibus. We paid easily twice what the locals did, but we were just glad to get out of there. The minibus had 12 seats, but they crammed it as full as possible and we ended up with 22 on board and some boys sitting on our laps! We had to change once more after that to another bus, and after a very long and adventurous day we arrived in the city of Hue.

To our shock, it was freezing cold and raining there, so we treated ourselves to a nice hotel room where we relaxed for a few days!

Hue is on the old dividing line between North and South Vietnam - known as the "demilitarized zone". The area saw heavy fighting during the war and ruins of American military bases still exist. We visited one which has been turned into a museum and has some old US tanks, helicopters and bomb shells.

On the way we were shown the old Ho Chi Minh Trail crossing at a river which the Viet Cong soldiers once used as a supply line, but where we saw some children happily playing.

We also went to the Vinh Moc tunnels in the former North Vietnam, where villagers and Viet Cong hid out. Built on three underground levels by the sea, there are 4km of tunnels and it took 20 months to build them. Around 400 North Vietnamese lived down there whilst the war raged, and 19 babies were born there. It was surreal walking through them imagining what life would have been like.

What made our day though, was listening to the experiences of our guide Tam, who was 14 at the peak of the war in 1968. He lost many of his family during that time.

He lived near the infamous Highway 9 where many battles were fought, and his village was taken over by the US to be used as a command base. He told of his terror as a child when the US planes and helicopters flew close overhead. They knew if they made any sudden movements, they would be seen as suspicious and shot.
He said one helicopter got so close he and his friend thought they wanted to chop off their heads with the propellers. There were a few terrifying moments when he could see the GI pointing a gun at him with his finger over the trigger before it took off and flew away.

He also described how one elderly woman (who didn't understand why a helicopter was hovering over her) was so scared she ran towards a bomb shelter only for an American soldier to throw a grenade straight through the door because she was "acting suspiciously".

Tam said that when the US sprayed the countryside with defoliant, the villagers did not think too much of it - they were told over a loudspeaker that they were under no threat, that they were just killing the vegetation so the enemy could not hide.

It was only years later that the devastating effects of those chemicals became clear. More than 100,000 children and grandchildren of people exposed to the chemicals have been born with deformities, and many more have died. American soldiers fighting on the ground when the chemicals were sprayed have suffered in the same way.

History still weighs very heavily on Vietnam, but since being here we have been amazed at the resilience of its people. Despite it being just over thirty years since the end of the infamous war, they are moving on from their past and the people we've met have mostly been warm, curious and open towards us.

We've are now moving south (where we're told it's much warmer!) and our next stop is Hoi An.

Hope you are all well, stay in touch!

Lots of love from us xxx

High Point: Travelling through rural Laos the hard way
Low Point: Seeing the scars left on such a beautiful country, Vietnam
Cost of a double room: £3 in Xepon, £9 for a posh room in Hue with bath and tv
Cost of a local beer: Saigon 20p
Favourite meal: Our DIY noodle soup in Xepon