Our scooter for the day was arriving at 9am so a quick breakfast then it was time to find out just where we were actually going 😂 the plan was to visit a temple in the mountain called Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep and then going on to visit the waterfalls.

Cautious that we haven’t been on a scooter since Vietnam and being told that there was checkpoints along the way. If you didn’t have a license or an international driving license it was 500 baht fine…..but you continue diving for the next 3 days 🤔 anyway we set off I was driving and Becky being navigator. A quick stop for petrol and barely made it out the centre of Chiang Mai before being stopped by police at a checkpoint. Just typical. 500 baht paid and we were on the road again! The road was fantastic to drive to the temple as it was all twist and turns going up a mountain I was loving it! Becky however wasn’t so my rib cage was in danger. We finally made it to the top I driving as carefully as human possible not going above 30kmh. Walking up towards the gates there was bus loads of people turning up and already around…..Chinese…..great…..we haven’t missed this that’s for sure.

To get to the temple there are around 300 steps up. People were flagging not even half way up!!!

Once entering the temple we walked around first before going in to have a look at the sights. There was different Budda’s and designs plus a huge set of bells along a wall with a massive sign saying DONT RING BELL typically the Chinese don’t read things first and continued to ring the bells. I felt like ringing there neck!! Once entering the temple it looked exactly like all the others we had visited on the trip. Giant gold Budda’s everywhere.

The amount of money in religion is unbelievable I’m definitely in the wrong business! Becky is becoming more interested in the religion of Buddhism and we found out you can have a sit down and chat with a monk. (That’s a plan for tomorrow) I’ve been warned already not give them a grilling and put down their beliefs. Walking back down the steps it was alarming to see the amount of people stopping for a break.

Off to the waterfalls now which meant a drive down the mountain and only one lane available….this was going to be interesting. I never bothered with the accelerator as we didn’t need it just let gravity do the work. We stopped partway down to get directions as we thought we had gone too far and missed the cut off. As we arrived Becky was starving and feeling very drained with no energy. Lucky there was a stall with some noodles and crisps.

We walked towards the waterfall which we could see. Becky pointing out that this was it. I was having none of it. It couldn’t have been it surely. I’ve seen better in Paisley!……it was it, disappointment straight away.

There was a jungle trail also which we started, around 15mins into it we came across a Canadian man who was saying it takes him 3 hours to do it and it’s all jungle not any water. That was our decision made then we turned back around! Becky was conscious of snakes so began clapping her hands and shouting “were here” 😂😂😂 that was me gone.

Since the disappointment of that so called water fall there was another at the bottom of the mountain so we headed there. Becky this time decided to hold onto my shoulder as we drove down and continued to pull me whenever a car was passing. It was better than the ribs being crushed so I kept quiet.

This waterfall was much more impressive and required us to climb and move over some rocks to get too. After some photos we sat down to chill out for a bit next to the water as it was very relaxing, we reflected on the trip and choosing what to do that evening.

Our drive back to the hostel was ok I prefer driving in Vietnam when there’s no rules and whoever goes first gets right away. Here is a bit more like back home with actual lanes/ traffic lights and people signalling. We made it back in one piece thanks to my safe driving and Becky being navigator…..we make a good team when it matters!

We walked back into the centre of Chiang Mai as I don’t think Becky fancied the scooter again to get some lunch and have a few beers while writing the blog and catching up with the missed days.

Can’t believe that is it…..all over. The trip of a lifetime. Whatever we did today was meaningless as the thought of going to the airport took over.

No alarm was set this morning which was perfect. Our flight this afternoon wasn’t till 3.30 and we didn’t have to check out till 11.30.

After packing which took the best part of 10mins as we were chucking pretty much everything that we brought in the bin! We headed out for some lunch and a walk around a market. Of course an obligatory seven eleven cheese toastie for breakfast, had to savour the last one.

Neither of us had sunglasses or a hat and the sun was beating down on us all morning. Would not want to sit next to us two on the flight later that’s for sure! We walked up towards a market which was recommended to us by our hostel host Joe.

The market was huge with different floors and all different sections, food, clothing, jewellery and a food court (all northern Thai food which we were sick off) the market killed an hour or so which was good.

We started walking back towards the old part of the city in the look for a restaurant for some lunch. Becky was feeling the pineapple fried rice and I wasn’t too fussed as long as it was rice or noodles. After looking at several menus we ended up eating next door to the restaurant we ate at the other day.

No pineapple fried rice for Becky unfortunately but she did settle for a mango waffle. I had the chocolate waffle but couldn’t finish it…far too much food.

Once we reached back to the hostel we asked Joe to order us a taxi, we got chatting and he’s a massive Liverpool fan (clearly not a glory hunter!) He was looking at tickets and being quoted £160 for a home ticket 😂 clearly this was wrong so I showed him the actual prices off the clubs website.

Our taxi had arrived and we were off!

The realisation soon set in.

We were going to see BAXTER 😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁

The airport and flights weren’t a problem, a bit of a blur actually. Once we had arrived in Bangkok from Chiang mai we looked at getting some food once our bags were sorted and we had gone through security and passport control. For a huge airport there wasn’t actually that much choice other than burger king, after looking at the information board we found that there was a subway….. At the far end of the massive airport, well we needed the exercise. David got his usual not so vegetarian Italian meat sub with lashings of BBQ sauce. I had the veggie delight fully expecting it to be like at home with the veggie patty when in fact it was a salad sandwich and no filing. I enjoyed it all the same.

Neither of us could get comfy on the flight. The meal choice wasnt fab, no vegetarian meal unless you preordered luckily there was a prawn pasta which I would eat, David,being the strict vegetarian refused the chicken and vegetables.i actually don’t get it, there’s no rhyme or reason to his meat choices on this holiday, he will eat salami or fastfood burgers, probably the least nutritious disgusting offcuts of meat yet he refuses chicken breast claiming he’s a veggie……I give up!!!

At Dubai we had a short stop over, after getting a big hot drink which I was craving and a caramel shortcake for David it was pretty much time to board.

On our flight this time a toddler was screaming the place down, the flight was 7.5 hours and I just thought we were in for hell but as soon as we took off he didn’t make a sound until we landed! The meals were all vegetarian options on this flight, but David said he was too tired to eat it…. I despair!!! To be fair he slept for almost 4 hours which he just doesn’t do on flights so he must have been knackered!!

And that’s it! Were back in Manchester, arrived in the rain to storm Freya. We expected no less. The final question in the taxi home…. Where should we go next!?

It wasn’t easy to get up this morning. Those few drinks last night taking their tole. We got picked up for the smile organic cooking class at exactly 8am, intact they were waiting for us when we went down. We were the first pick up for a change! There was about six other pick ups. The guide, Te was funny, super enthusiastic and reminded me a lot of the jungle trekking guide in phong Nha.

The first stop was a local market where she showed us Thai fast food in the little blown up plastic bags, all different types of rice, she kept saying ‘its the same same but different’ which is a typical Thai thing to say so much so that they even print it on t-shirts. The market tour was a bit of a whistle stop tour bit we have seen hundreds of markets now so we weren’t too bothered. Te bought bags of deep fried sweet potato, taro, and banana for us all to try. The only nice one was the banana. There was a young boy who was only four on our tour, he was absolutely hyper and he was travelling with his mum alone. She must have been exhausted! He was pulling on the guide, trying to reach items on the stalls.

It was a half hour journey to the organic farm out of the city. It really was a true farm, before we started cooking we were taken around to see and taste different ingredients that they were growing that we would be using later. They had every type of eggplant, marrow, basil, ginger, tumeric…. The list went on. As Te was picking different things to show us, Finn the little lady also took it upon himself to start pulling up plants. The staff were brilliant with him but his mum turned a blind eye. He was also getting very close to her huge knife, with. Few close moments.

W

e were the pink team and surprisingly we had a choice of 4options for each of the three courses, and all of these options could be vegetarian… Even better. As Te asked us our options she wrote all of our names in Thai from us saying it in English which was pretty fascinating. Even people’s names from different nationalities were ‘the same same but different’. David chose to cook the pad Thai, massaman curry as he has been after this since we arrived and the spicy chicken soup. I chose the tofu and cashew nut stir-fry, the paenang curry, and the hot and creamy soup. The idea was that we would cook different dishes and share them but as soon as David chose massaman I was out of this plan because this had lots of star anise and cinnamon.

All options could be either very spicy or mild expect they don’t call it spicy they call it sexy. Thai sexy is the hottest option followed by just sexy and finally baby spice was the mildest. I was shocked how similar all the curries were to make, just one different ingredient complete my changed the taste. Same same.but different.

We all made the spring roll option together, I stirred, whilst everyone else added the ingredients. Finn again was so close to the flames it was difficult not to move him back but his mum didn’t share the same concerns. He soon got bored though and after the first course he disappeared, even his mum wasnt sure where he had gone to but it turned out that the minibus driver was sat with him watching cartoons 😂.

After eating the first course and our spring rolls( which were fried in Palm oil because it’s cheap… Much to my horror!!) We were really full..how we would manage 2more courses!!!

After a quick break it was time to make the curry paste for each of our chosen curries from scratch, this meant using a pessle and mortar to grind all of the spices, chillies into a paste….. It was a group effort, but the different colours each curry made was quite interesting!

We didn’t manage to eat all of the food!! There was just too much. As it approaches 1pm things were wrapped up and we were given a recipe book each with each of our names in Thai and loads of recipes.

As soon as we got back we needed a snooze we were so full! At about 4pm we got up, feeling a bit healthier and headed out for a stroll before we got ready for the evening. We had a walk around the park where people were doing yoga in groups. The park was really nice, there was a fish pond, and All gym equipment including a free weights sections around the perimeter of the park. We sat for a little while and watched a yoga class, a Chinese woman was an absolute pro I’ve not seen positions like it!

We went into the old town for a stroll, I had to get a coke with coffee just to try and it didn’t disappoint. David tucked into his haribo and as he did the lens fell out of his glasses! Good job it was the last evening! Off they went into the bin!

Before we went out for tea we packed our bags for leaving, all of 10minutes and a mass throw out of stuff. Our bags were only half full. This meant we could buy more of what we wanted from the stalls tonight.

We really didn’t need a big meal at night, we went to the market, again…3rd night in a row! And got some street food, pancakes and gyoza to share enough to fill the spot. O still haven’t tried durian but I’m really not sure if I can stomach even the thought, it’s the fruit that’s banned in a lot of places for its awful smell, you really can smell it a mile off and it doesn’t look much better either, a bit like bulls testicles of you were to ask me!

If we tried really hard the money we had out of the bank could have stretched for the evening. But in true holiday style we said f@#k it and took some more out the atm which meant we could pick up a few more souvenirs including the new rucksack that I wanted, of course a cheap knock off of the real deal but it needed to replace my one that I had traveled with which was absolutely disgusting!!

At 930 the cabaret started. We couldn’t have Thailand and not visit the cabaret just one more time, much to David’s distress as he certainly was not a fan. I had just become fascinated with the ladyboy idea, with how accepted it is and just how many there are in Thailand if you look around, usually having to look closely!

The cabaret was a little different to the last, slightly more reserved in their outfits but just as impressive all the same! They still didn’t sing though David noticed. Once again they got guys up from the crowd. David thankfully didn’t get chosen but just the look on his face was probably enough for them to avoid his sense of humour failure. The poor guy that’s was pulled up for the Rihanna tune had ass pushed into his face 🤣.

At the end of the show I wanted a photo with thembut if course this doesn’t come for free and they started demanding a tip, saying it over and over again with no time for us to get a wallet out. I told them to hang on and give us 2 seconds and they finally gave us a break. The only note we had was a 100 baht. Great. To be fair it only worked out at £2.50 and photos are priceless memories!

We had one last drink in a bar playing live music, allbeit live rock music!!!! I hated it. David was just watching the guitarists ready for him learning when we got back.

Off to bed for our long day travelling tomorrow!

This morning after having a quick breakfast downstairs in the hostel we were picked up at 830am to visit the elephant nature park for the day. There were so meant sanctuaries in Chiang Mai it was a bit of a mine field of which one to go with but we finally book d one that recommended by a guy we met in Koh Tao whilst diving. The were a few pick ups in the minibus, once finished we watched a video on the history of Thailand’s elephants, how humans have used them and the horrendous cruelty that came hand in hand with the domestication process. People really can be evil!

The drive was about an hour, once we arrived we immediately met 3 Asian elephants who were to our pals for the day, they were all female, and aged 45, 72 and 80. 85 is usually the top life span for this animal. You could tell which ones were the oldest by the muscle wastage from their foreheads. They had been saved 2-3 years ago from the logging industry and neared some terrible scars on their legs.

First of all we cut up some watermelon to feed them, they knew exactly the routine for the day and were getting impatient. We then fed them by handing it to their trunks, the older 2 had to have their watermelon peeled to make it easier on their teeth whereas the older one could have the lot, skin and all!

Next we were to make protein balls and hand them these too, the man showed us how to hand them into their mouths but this meant getting past their strong trunks which were so strong and they were too enthusiastic to get the food!

After applying a thick layer of cream and insect repellent we were off for a short trek to the river and to the mountain for lunch. To ensure the elephants wanted to follow us for the entire journey we were each given a banana bag full of bananas, being advised not to wear it across the body because sometimes the elephants try and get into the bags and may pull you.

David was almost out of bananas within 5minutes, it was definitely a game of ‘no food, no friend’ . As we walked alongside the river the staff started to get excited, pointing at the dogs in the river, throwing stones in the water to point something out, it was an anaconda swimming in the water! The guide quickly said if you see any snakes out here don’t play with them, most are venomous and will kill a human within an hour…. great!

When we reached the little check point at the base of the mountain it was time for elephants to have their bamboo stop, however the local grazing cattle had got there first. The dogs weren’t happy at this and started barking and snapping at the cows ankles which disturbed the elephants who started stamping their feet and making a lot of noise.

A guide also had a bucket of tamarin, a large pod from a tree, when he put it down and wasn’t looking one of the elephants just started tucking into the bucket 😂.

The elephants took a break and we walked part way up the mountain side for lunch in a hut with a view. Lunch was awesome, lots of different Thai dishes, all vegetarian! And they even had roast potatoes which made David very happy, he went up for seconds… a full plate of roasties with ketchup!

After lunch we headed back did we and the elephants were a,ready in the water, it was time for a quick change and to bathe them in the river…. a little bit cautiously never mind given the snake spotted earlier in the day. Everyone was having a great time and buckets started to get thrown between people too, David had a sense of humour failure though and told a guy not to throw any at him….. I was mortified that he couldn’t enjoy a simple thing like a water fight- the fun police was well and truly out today with him!

After a good tree scratch we started heading back, again with a banana bag each and 2 huge bunches of bananas we went back to base camp…. it was heating up and I was worried that it would be a repeat sunburn day, despite using factor 50- how I escaped this was a miracle!

We said goodbye to this older group and moved by minibus to the head quarters to see some more hers with different stories to tell. The elephant nature park also rescues other dogs and has a dog clinic, cat clinic and herds of water buffalo, and horses. Pretty cool place actually! We walked round the park where we saw a 53 year old female elephant giving herself a mud bath, she had to be kept alone because she would get aggressive and try and steal the baby elephants.

A family of elephants including 2 orphaned males of 2 years old. So,e staff were having a picnic and one of the babies stole an entire bunch of bananas from them, they were so inquisitive.

There was also a huge group of water buffalo wading in the river, the only thing you could see was their head and horns, did not blame 5em, the heat was incredible!

Finally we met a female elephant who was completely blind, she had been rescued from a local farmer who had gauged both of her eye out with a knife as a punishment for her breaking someone’s arm. She was trying her best to get the fruit from the trees.

Finally we met a young elephant who got his foot trapped in a tiger trap a year ago and after his herd couldn’t rescue him they abandoned him in the forest. He still had a bandage on his foot and his forelimb was twice the size of his other. The rescue was doing their best to bathe it twice daily and bandage it but it still looked horrific, and amazing he was still living to be honest. They are so intelligent! He had a foster mum who was also blind but lead him to the treatment area at specific times to have his treatment, he even went to bathe it himself with a bit of bribery in the form of watermelon. His mum literally had to push him to the treatment area, probably because she knew that their was food in it for her!

That evening we went over to the night market! Wow I’ve never seen anything on that scale, streets lined with stalls, plazas with stalls, all pretty much selling the same stuff but some it quite nice stuff. Perfect place to get a bargain and even better that it’s our last stop so we can fill our cases the beat we can! We ate light street food tonight, didn’t want to sit in another restaurant with Thai food that we were fed up of!

You would think we could time flights with the amount we have been on over the past two months but sadly not. Early once again. Koh Samui airport was very small and actually quite nice as most of the shops were outside it was a welcome change to the usual air con terminal. However since being outside came the mosquitos! Becky was unimpressed with this as she was wearing all black so they targeted her, I move along a seat so I wouldn’t get hassled as much. She ended up sitting next to a tub of open tiger balm as apparently it keeps them away. The gate was even outside and had a courtesy station of hot and cold drinks and snacks.

The flight to Chiang Mai was 1h and 30mins we were asked to sit in emergency exits seats….suppose you could call this an upgrade (first one of the holiday!) We were surprised during the flight with a meal! Sadly it was chicken and veg so neither of us could have it. We both had seven eleven cheese toasties (standard) in the taxi to the airport so wasn’t too big of a deal.

Once we arrived in Chiang Mai a taxi was the only option really but it was cheap so we didn’t mind. I asked the driver for some sights to see while we were here but I could hardly understand him (now I know how people feel when I talk) all I could get was elephants.

We are staying at a hostel called Family Home and were greeted by the host Joe. Couldn’t meet a nicer person very friendly and informative about the area. Becky picked the right place for once!!!😂

Bags dumped it was time to see the area and what it had to offer. A walk round the main streets we came across a local market so had a walk round before stopping for some lunch in a little restaurant next door. Id gone for the veg pad Thai, Becky the mushroom yum tom soup which was pretty spicy judging by the sweat that was pouring off her while she was eating it.

As we continued to walk around doing some shopping Becky picking up and dress and I got another pair of elephant pants to wear travelling back home in. We headed back to the hostel to chill out before heading out later.

Our plan was to visit a restaurant based on TripAdvisor it was called Love Cooking. I think both of us are fed up with the food now of either rice/noodles and veg. One more night wouldn’t harm. Becky had the mango curry and I ended up with a coconut potato curry not the massaman curry that I ordered (this is becoming a theme) but I ate some of it.

Next up we were attending the Muay Thai boxing again (Becky is getting right into her fighting now!) Few others joined us from the hostel and we all sat at the one table.

Unfortunately I was sat next to a German who “knew it all” and had done 8 years of MMA…..more like 8 years of McDonald’s and burger king. Anyway back to the action there was 6 fights scheduled. 3 woman fights, 1 kid fight and 2 men’s fight.

The woman fights were like being back in school so it was pretty poor to watch. Interest only came when a few Thai people were walking around looking for bets even though it was illegal(like that matters in Thailand) the kid fight was even more difficult to watch. Two boys aged probably 7 or 8. The gloves were bigger than their body. One of the boys didn’t even throw a punch or kick he took a beating which lasted even into the second round. We both found it difficult to watch as the kid burst into tears after the fight and was limping back to the changing room, meanwhile Thais betting on who was gonna win,🤔.

Now for the main event. A Swiss “international” fighter Vs a Thai. Everyone was betting on the Swiss guy even the Thai’s were betting on him. I remember being told that it’s frowned upon to get beat off a westerner especially in your home city! I chose the Thai guy to win based on that and the fact he had legs like tree trunks. Everyone else was supporting the Swiss. First round and the Swiss was on the canvas twice in a matter of minutes as he was swept while trying to kick. The beating then began. The Thai doing some real damage with kicks to the side of the body and the back of the thigh. The Swiss was turning purple! Becky thought that only adrenaline would get you through a beating of that degree and to keep getting back in the ring, but she was soon corrected by the german lad who informed us that adrenaline played no part in fighting. Becky called bullshit on his statement! Further into the rounds the Swiss was starting to gain momentum and the Thai was getting tired. He changed his game plan and started getting close to the Swiss who was much better at punching than kicking. I lost it by this point so I kept saying “chop the f*#@ing tree down! Go back to the leg” somehow I don’t think he understood. The Thai won by decision much to everyone’s disappointment even more so the Thai’s who were betting all ran away as they put money on the Swiss so they didn’t have to pay out!!!

The final fight were 2 young women, lasted about 5minutes before one took a kick in the ribs and didn’t get back up. The German expert next to us was sure it was her knee because ‘thats what had happened to him’.

We headed back to the hostel to prepare for tomorrow’s elephant adventure! 😁

This morning we got packed up, we’ve got good at this now so don’t need to think about it until the day we leave! David was complaining that he had a sore throat so I offered him a ‘throat lozenger’ little did he know they were those ricotta sort that are a natural laxatives! It did the trick in soothing his throat though 😂After breakfast we got a lift in the back of the pick up down to the harbour for a ferry to Koh Samui, as soon as we got off there was a lady there offering tickets for a different company at an earlier time, at first we were a bit dubious but it seemed to be pretty busy and at the same cost we just went for it, it saved us waiting 40minutes. The boat was freezing, we ended up sitting apart because David wanted the leg room seats but it was directly under the air con, and this was just not happening for me. Took 2 hours to get there via a quick stop at Koh Phangan. Once we arrived we had the task of getting a taxi, we should have booked the taxi along with the ferry which worked out much cheaper than a local taxi, but not to worry, a bit of sweet talking with one of the minibus drivers from the ferry service got us to the hotel for cheaper than a local taxi. He will probably pocket the cash but it got us from A to B. As David popped the last 2 ‘throat lozengers’ into his mouth, and me realising that in the space of about 3-4hours he had demolished the pack I had to tell him their natural side effect. His face dropped and he started complaining immediately that he needed the toilet! O well they worked in shutting him up for a few hours!

We were too early to check in at the hotel she we dumped our bags and went for a walk. It seemed a lot more touristy here with many stalls and knock off goods. I was on the hunt for some sunglasses as the lens had fallen out for f mine with the frame cracked in on the snorkelling trip.

As we walked we found an outlet area with lots of sport shoes in, the discounts weren’t great and we were conscious of getting things packed in our bags so we didn’t bother. We instead walked around the cheap stalls with all the usual stuff, David somehow found a tv with the football on and he was stuck here for 15minutes whilst I looked around for some cheap sunglasses…. I didn’t find any, they were all so wonky and naff, even they were only about £3 I still couldn’t bring myself to buy them! In the end we gave up and settled in a backpackers bar for the afternoon. Some decent food and a few beers later we were ready to head back and get checked in.

Nice we had checked in we both completely KO’ d for a good few hours, both of us absolutely dead to the world until sunset! Must have been the travel, heat and the beer with full tummies. David said it was the best sleep he had ever had.

Our hotel is surrounded by posh 5star resorts and restaurants to go with them along the beach. We decided to f#*k it and go for a slap up meal in some nice clothes, brushed hair the lot!! After scouring online, we settled on an Italian, nearly on the beach but not quite as all the beach ones really were out of budget and mainly sold fish! We walked the short distance to Prego, David ordered his not so vegetarian lasagna, his ham and cheese toastie at lunch clearly leading him a stray. I ordered a black truffle risotto. We went all out and even ordered a starter of garlic bread, and I treated myself to white wine whilst David got an ice bucket for his beer! The bread arrived with baked garlic and pesto, it was devoured, I ate so much garlic I knew I would stink the next day. Around 15 minutes later the actual starter of garlic bread arrived…. we had mistaken the first lot for our starter but that was on the house 😂 god help the person sat next to me on the plane tomorrow! That’s when the treat ended, the food arrived together, mine looked kind of strange, very creamy, smelt very cheesy. I immediately thought it was wrong, I had 2 spoonfuls and knew that it was wrong, I was sure it was the 4cheese risotto not the black truffle. And sure enough the next thing the apologies came and it was whipped away. I think every member of staff apologised and said they would make it again, but he new one arrived over minutes later, once David had finished all of his food, and I was on my second glass of wine. His was the theme of the holiday, eating at different times but we didn’t expect it from a 5 star restaurant, not at western prices! However they couldn’t have apologised enough. David kept telling me to put my foot down but I was playing happy customer until the bill came, I was of the mindset they were more likely to help you if your polite, and we all experienced he embarrassment of so,done kicking off when the Canadian did at the full moon party! The bill came and they had knocked 10% off, not really good enough but we let it slide and paid, it was the gesture and everyone makes mistakes, just a shame it was at our one off slap up meal in 2 months!

After the meal we walked along the beach in the same mindset, looking for a decent beach cocktail bar. We had to walk a little way, all the restaurants were really nice, had lights embedded in the sand, small tents over each table with candles, typical honeymoon standards….a long way from our honeymoon style! We came across a pop up beach cocktail bar with huge bean bags fairy lights. We picked a ‘honeymoon’ cocktail here and just sat and watched the stars and reflected on the holiday. Top5’s in each category etc which we will write once all of our experiences are done. We even saw a shooting star which was the first for us both!

Tomorrow final stop Chiang Mai.

Becky overloaded on the breakfast this morning as we were in for long day snorkeling and she was feeling about better. Our taxi pick up was 9.30am it was GREAT not setting an alarm.

We arrived at the office which was packed full of people. Arranged into groups, wristband plus goggles and snorkel. It was a smooth transition I have to say compared to most things in Thailand. Once that was done it was a short walk down to the pier to get on the boat.

The trip involved 5 stops, the first being Japanese gardens which was atan island called job Nang yuan,just off Koh Tao. Rules were no plastic bottles allowed on the island or extra footwear 🤔 in an attempt to keep the place stunning. It was a beautiful place a stretch of sand connecting the 2 main parts of the island and crystal blue water either side. My idea of paradise, apart from the hundreds of tourists.

We put our towels down just next to the water as we had 2 hours on this island so it was straight in the sea for both of us!

We saw lots of fish all different colours it was amazing to see, as we kept swimming out the visibility wasn’t that great but if I was going to see a turtle I had to go deeper! As we reached the rope to go no further this is when we seen the most amount of fish as they were feeding off the rope and the bottom of the boats nearby. At one point this group of fish swarmed around me. I stayed still to just see what would happen, this one little fish would not leave me alone and kept nibbling at my ear or face!

We decided to try another part of the island to see if there was any turtles! I was desperate to swim with one, I know we seen one diving but it would be awesome to snorkel with one or two or three, asking a bit much there?

Again the visibility wasn’t great the further we swam out but I think there wouldn’t be as much to see this side anyway as all the boats were docking this side of the island. I can’t remember most of the names of the fish apart from angel fish and sea urchins (these things are lethal!!!)

Back to the boat for 1pm and it was lunch time, a packed lunch consisting of you guessed it veg and rice. I could only eat half of it as I wasnt that hungry and just fed up of eating veg and rice. Luckily there was biscuits on offer so I tucked into a few of them to tide me over. After lunch it was time to reapply the sun cream as it probably would have washed off after two hours of snorkeling.

The second site was called mango bay a little cove next to some rocks. This time it was a jump off the 2nd floor of the boat effort into the water. Neither of us fancied it so we used the steps. Becky was having issues with her snorkel too it was letting some water in at the nose so we swapped at the next site.

The third site was just off the east side of the island. We spent very little time in this site as there were far too many people in the water. There were a few more boats on the site too so that didn’t help the situation. Since we got back on the boat early both of us went up to the sun deck to dry off. I applied suncream to Becky’s back as she was staying up for longer but I went back downstairs as I was feeling burnt already.

As we arrived at the fourth site the water was very choppy and it was close to some rocks so we decided it was best if we didn’t go in. Most people were taking life jackets as the sea was that rough. Both of us were starting to feel the effects of both the sun and the swimming all day. A break was needed!

Our final stop on the trip was to shark bay! We were both reluctant to go in as we thought it would be the same as the other sites. However it all changed when one of the staff got in the water first and shouted to everyone that a turtle was in the water. It’s probably the quickest I’ve moved all holiday. I grabbed my snorkel and jumped in, Becky was behind me at one point but then she disappeared, no way waiting! What an experience that is swimming with a turtle! I can check that off the bucket list! I found Becky eventually or she found me 😂 we decided to have a look for another one. Our attempts at finding another turtle failed but we did come across a trigger fish which can be aggressive so we swam away!

Back on the boat we noticed that EVERYONE had sunburn. I was praying I didn’t have it, I had factor 50 on all day! Some people couldn’t have put cream on all day as they were red raw!

Once we arrived back at the hotel it became clear who was burnt and who was not! I was in the clear for the most part my neck was a little red but that was it. Becky however was no so lucky and guess who got the blame! During her time on the sundeck she fell asleep while lay on her front. I did put cream on her back but she was a little red there. Her bum however was like a baboons ass 🤣 it looked so sore. Again I got the blame for not putting cream on it…..yeah my fault completely.

That night I wasnt feeling too great I don’t know if it was the combination of diving all week and that snorkeling trip. Our plan was to go have a nice meal then attend the cabaret that was on. Becky wasnt hungry or didn’t want much to eat. a restaurant nearby would do the trick. As I wasn’t feeling great I wasnt that hungry but was forced to eat as I “hadn’t eaten in days”.

Once we finished we walked round the market to find Becky some glasses as hers broke early on in the day and me some swim shorts as to quote Becky “you can’t go swimming in gym shorts!” Pointless now getting swim shorts with a week to go!

Cabaret time and well what can I say that is an experience in itself. Free entry but your required to buy a drink and they were pricey. Fair enough one vodka and one Bacardi. I think they doubled or tripled up on the alcohol as the coke was almost clear!

This was our first experience of a cabaret and well I was confused by the situation. Guys dressed up as women dancing and miming to songs. They didn’t even sing…. Felt cheated in a way to be honest. Becky was curious looking for scars and who still had their meat and 2 veg 😂 there was one though and this isn’t meant to sound harsh but he/she looked like they had been hit in the face with a spade. Becky later thought they looked like jigsaw from the saw films 😂 it was good entertainment anyway especially when one guy was pulled out the audience for a special lap dance with one of the performers. Thank god it wasn’t me! Becky is now jealous of their bodies and made one of the performers her bodygoal! Don’t really know what to make of this….does she want to look like a ladyboy???🤔

Early start this morning, we were to be at the dive shop for 6am to do the deep sea and wreck dive. The only problem was I was not well at all with a case of ‘Delhi belly’. We were on the second taxi out and I had to go back to the room, I almost had to back out of the diving when I couldn’t move, David wondered where I had disappeared to. I manned up, took some tablets and just got on with it hoping for the best. The flecks of meat I Found when I was half way through what I thought was egg fried rice yesterday at have had something to do with it.

On the diving we went down to 28m, we had to keep a watch of our own nitrogen levels on our watches and the safety stops became essential to prevent decompression sickness. He deeper waters were quite murky, we had to play Rock Paper Scissors at the deepest point to assess if even was experiencing narcosis which caused delirium. I wiped the floor with everyone, no one was showing signs of it. Matt also took a bottle down to demonstrate a few concepts, the pressure compressing the bottle, he blew it up underwater and it was ready to burst when we surfaced with the air expansion. The colour change at that depth is also incredible, the bottle label was orang and red but deep down the red turns to back as the water absorbs the colours. This means the fish and coral are much more colourful than we can appreciate, many black objects may actually be bright. The sounds under the water that deep are quite eerie, deep and droning, a bit like you hear in the films. All of a sudden I was much more relaxed, my air tank lasting longer than any of my other dives, it’s actually therapeutic being that deep, there is literally no room for panicking as this could prove fatal, just deal with things as they happen! Again the guy diving with us was a liability, he had no clue and couldn’t descend like everyone else, on the ascent he was a good 3-5m above everyone else and wasn’t listening to matts very firm instructions to descend, particularly on the safety stop. Once we surfaced Matt the instructor gave him some stern words because he is likely to cause himself an injury! My tummy survived 😊.

The second dive was ship wreck dive again at 28m, the visibility on this dive was pretty poor, we didn’t go to the bottom but stayed around the ships deck at about 23m. We had to swim through a few windows by once again the guy with us stopped at the exit blocking me and David in and David caught his foot slightly on the metal attempting to hover with his buoyancy in a small window space! The visibility was that poor that we went onto an adjacent reef, a bit more to see here, trigger fish, giant grouper, which were huge prehistoric looking fish, around 2 m in length.

Once we got back to the hotel at about 11am we got showered and went out for some lunch at the big blue beach bar, I stuck with a safe vegetable sandwich and David had pasta. We then attempted to lay out in the sun in the bar on our resort. I was feeling totally rubbish, I just couldn’t bear the heat on me which was pretty unusual, and I felt exhausted. Reluctantly I took myself off to bed for a few hours, after all we had the night dive tonight that I had to get through if we were to get our advanced diving certificates.

The night dive was a pretty stressful thought. We went out at 530 at sunset and got briefed about using torch’s underwater, it changed things a little it like descending, ascending, underwater communication, reporting air remaining, and spotting fish.

Also you had to be more aware of navigation and scanning for coral to avoid injury. On this night dive the deepest we went is 18m. That was enough. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, we just took it slowly, concentrating on breathing slowly to conserve air. We saw tonnes of feather starfish which feed at night, coral feeding and really camouflage scorpion fish.The bonus of the nightdive was the colours are much more true as you have a light source close by so all the coral were much brighter in colour than in the day. Matt the instructor was happy with how we were all doing and was happy to do a swim through with us which means a short tunnel of enclosed rock. This changed he dive for me and David wasn’t too chuffed either. The guy diving with us went first and again stopped right as he exited. This stopped both of us proceeding through and we were trapped in the tunnel which was literally covered in huge long spikes sea urchins, I grabbed his fin and pushed him away and by him; conscious that David was also behind me, I had passed caring and getting hit with hose urchins would ruin the rest of our trip. From that point in the dive I was keen for it to end, it was just that extra stress I could do without. The final activity of he night dive was to settle on the bottom and block the light from our torches to see the photosensitive plankton. As you shook your hand with no light all of the plankton lit up around you- pretty cool.

Ascending from the dive in the dark is the same as in the day, safety stop, shine your torch upwards to look for danger on surface, to let boats know your surfacing, and so you don’t dazzle the rest of the team ascending behind you. Again mr. liability messed up every aspect, dazzled Matt by shining the torch down the way and kicked him in the head. On surfacing Matt was less than impressed with him and I had to swim back to the boat as their heated conversation was getting embarrassing. I don’t know how it was left but Rakul was not to be seen much on the boat journey back. We chatted with Matt about his life out here, his qualifications and experiences.

Once back at the dive shop we had to log the dives and wait for Matt to certify us, part of this was we were to do an exam online before the final dive. Although mr liability claimed he had done it it wasn’t showing up as complete and he had to do it again. Matt basically did it for him which was a bit of a joke but otherwise we would have been there all night. We were both actually gobsmacked that he was an,e to certify. If I ended up with a buddy like that I would just end the dive immediately!

That evening we grabbed something to eat at a street food stall, the usual veg pad Thai for me and veg and rice for David. I was a bit nervous about eating but I took a gamble. It was fine. We then headed to the Muay Thai boxing stadium where there were fights on tonight. It was a bit of a contrast to Bangkok, very basic, outdoor ring with a shelter and basic seating stands and plastic chairs. We had missed he first couple of fights but still was t hard to get a seat. The fights were much more hard core than in Bangkok, their sole aim to knock each other out, with a point to prove especially when it came to a westerner fighting a local, apparently it is a disgrace to lose against a westerner!

Tomorrow we go snorkelling around the island for the day.

Not the 5.30am start!!! Woohoo! Our dive meeting time was 10.30am. we arrived early and told there was 1 more person on our course. We had to complete some classroom work before heading on the taxi to the pier. The classroom work consisted of the plan for the next 5 dives. The other guy on our course turns up 25mins late and didn’t apologise for being late…..Becky didn’t take too kindly to this. Part of the course is being able to navigate a square using your compass. I started to worry cause I couldn’t even do a straight line correct never mind a square. Our DI explained it to us and we practiced on the grass outside. I still didn’t understand it and probably never will! (On land anyway).

Our first dive was to do perform this and to work on our buoyancy. Nick our useless buddy on the course was struggling to even get down to the depth to start the course work! Going to be a long two days if he keeps this up. Anyway I was first up on the compass square. Becky holding onto my shoulder I had to navigate her in a square with 5 kicks each time before turning. As we started I initially lost count on the kicks (que the jokes for not being able to count to 5) I was too busy concentrating on my compass. Everything then seemed to click. I knew what I was doing. Completed it no bother whatsoever. Becky was impressed! I was impressed how could I do it underwater and not on land?? Next up was Becky, I held onto her shoulder this time and off we went. 5 kicks in and Becky stops. I’m thinking she must just be working out the way to go. Nope I was wrong. She freaks out and panics. Her brain went dead and she couldn’t work out what to do. I tried to keep her calm and communicate to find out what bearing he had given her but that didn’t work. She continued to panic but luckily the DI came across and brought us back to starting point. This time he went along with her rather than me. She completed it first time but I think he was turning her when she had to turn.

Next objective was the buoyancy control. Our task was to be able to control how much we raise and drop in the water by controlling our breathing. We had to basically face plant the bottom and stop ourselves by breathing. Keeping as close to the sand as possible. I did not fancy smashing my face into the sand so I kept a fair distance and controlled it from there. We then we’re shown the technique of how to swim in a circle and swim backwards using fins only. Sound easy? Try swimming backwards next time your in the pool using your legs only to do a back to front breast stroke kick…what a laugh! Finally we were taken to an area which had 2 metal rings in the sand and we had to swim through them without touching the edges. Both of us aced it.

The second dive consisted of another navigation task. Our job was to navigate round a dive site using visual objects plus our compass. There was lots more fish to see on the dive and we could actually enjoy it a bit more without feeling the pressure. During our navigation our instructor paused us to show us the highlight of the entire trip. A TURTLE!!!! The one thing I’ve been waiting to see. It was amazing, I wanted to stay longer with the turtle but we had to get back to navigating. As we got towards the end of the dive site we lost our way a little bit and had to be help by the instructor. That was us done for diving today we start back again tomorrow morning 6am 😒.

Exciting night ahead we both had. I was off to do a Brazilian jiu-jitsu class and Becky was due to do a yoga class. Both of us were in for a shock as our fitness has well and truly gone!!! I came back drenched in sweat and very sore as I hadn’t done that type of exercise for weeks! Becky came back worse than me!!! 🤣 Her yoga class ended up being 2 hours long!

Once we finally got ourselves together we headed out for some dinner. I seen a nice busy place on the way back from jiu jitsu so we decided to go there. Local Thai restaurant, cheap and was busy so what could go wrong! We both opted for the vegetarian Thai red curry. I was sadly disappointed with the meal it wasn’t quite up to standards! Becky enjoyed hers so we paid up and left. As we were walking along there was a buzz around a bar. There was a fire show on so it was worth grabbing a beer and enjoying the show! We were sitting down the front next to the action when one of the performers threw the flaming ball in the air but let go too late and it flew over past where people were sitting and dropped into the lap of an unsuspecting person enjoying a beer in the bar nextdoor. At that point Becky left our seat on the beach to a more sheltered seat inside…(taking no chances)😂 the show went on of course as there’s no such thing as health and safety here. During the show a young boy who must have been around 7/8 began to twirl the fire too. They must start them early here as he was actually pretty good.

Don’t know where last night ends and this morning begins. Lack of sleep plus starting to feel hungover is not a good combination.

Once we finally made it back to the hotel a shower was very much needed to get this body paint off as it was becoming annoying by this point.

Few hours sleep and we began to feel human again. We decided to go for a walk and grab some food before sitting next to the beach and catch up on the days of the blog we had missed.

Seeing the sun was starting to set we decided to hire some paddle boards to go out and watch it from the water. It was my first time on a paddle board and Becky had done it before in the Carribbean so in my eyes she was a pro. What a laugh it was…….no issue getting on to the board or standing up the issues came when trying to paddle standing up and keeping your balance. I was in water in a matter of seconds. My foot gave way and that was it straight in. Started to get the hang of it so we attempted to go further out test the limits! The next thing I hear is a scream from Becky as her board caught some rope and she ended up in the water too. As I turned round to see and have a chuckle I fell off too. Typical. Becky was in stitches by this point.

We continued further out and by this point I was on my knees paddling as it was SO MUCH EASIER to control and not fall in. The next job was to “try” get photos with the sunset and on our boards. I was first to go and as you can see it didn’t go well ………

B

ecky’s attempt went much better but I couldn’t work the camera thinking there was water in it when there was just water on the lens😒 Although once I got the hang of it with the camera Becky was then unable to control her board and started going around in circles. I had to laugh finally the pro was having issues and it was me that was doing well (even though I was still on my knees by this point). The tide was beginning to change so we thought it was best to head back to shore plus the sun was setting quickly which meant we had less light. Could have been interesting us amateurs paddle boarding in the dark! We attempted standing up once again to come back to shore like pro’s but we didn’t realise a boat had past behind us and kicked up some waves. Yip that was me back in the sea! Played it safe from then on back to the knees!

Think I spent more time in the water than on the board but it was good fun and a great laugh. We have found a sport which Becky is better at than me!

That night we were heading to a vegetarian restaurant along the beach but we were stopped after maybe 2 mins walk due to a burger bar which caught Becky’s eye. It looked AMAZING. We were still knackered after only 3hours sleep so it was decided we would eat here and then the vegetarian place another night. This restaurant did not disappoint, garlic bread to start (5 pieces even though there’s 2 of us….pointless) both of us went for the veggie burger with LARGE fries. It was a struggle to finish it but we made a good effort 😂the diet will have to wait a few more days!.

Tomorrow is planned…..time to become advanced open water divers!

This morning we had a small lie in, knowing we had an all nighter ahead of us. We still hadn’t booked a boat to get to koh phangnan because we were waiting to see if the boat coming back to Koh Tao at 3am was running….. turned out this had been cancelled so our only option was to get the last ferry at 530pm and return on the first ferry the next day at 840am. Are we too old for this kind of thing?????

By the time we had sorted a boat it was heading towards 2pm so we did the sensible thing and got a kip before the pick up at 4.30pm

At the ferry port there were lots of groups heading on the same ferry, couples, young groups, older groups. Some people had started drinking already, again the sensible oldies we were on the water, tonight was definitely a marathon not a sprint. Ferry too, just over 1 hour, not a lot to report.luckily our ferry ticket included a minibus transfer, roughly around half an hour to the beach. As we approached there were more and more neon shops, body painters and the crowds were getting bigger. Were were dropped at so,e car park and told this would be the pick up point between 5-6am for the ferry back in the morning. It was very non descript but we found a nearby school as a marker. We didn’t bother heading into the beach just yet, it was only 7pm so we walked up the road people watching, and looking for somewhere to get food. The party was attracting so many different types of people, from 6yearolds with their families to pensioners, everyone had one thing in common, they were dressed in full moon gear, and neon paint. We have been saying all holiday that we must get matching tops as this is what many Chinese couples wear, tonight may have to be night.

We settled on a meal in a street kitchen that was really very busy. 9m.y huge tables for 10 people were left so we were joined by 10 Canadians, all our age and out celebrating their 30ths. One of the guys was really confident, he owned man online businesses and nightclubs and was clearly very well off, but he knew it. He was telling us he had just flown in from the Maldives where he had stayed in the most prestigious hotel but he had kicked up a fuss because a waiter winked at his girlfriend. We sat for over an hour chatting before this guy realised the food was taking a lifetime and that other people were walking in and getting served. He started kicking Up a fuss here too, although he had a point it was very embarrassing, particularly considering the price of an average meal was just£2. He definitely had small man syndrome! Half his group walked out as the food arrived saying they would go somewhere else. I just ate mine, paid and left.

Next stop was the T-shirt shop. David has a small obsession with vest tops, he chose one and tried at least 4 others on too, before settling on one design. Our luck was in, they had one for me to match. Done.

The final preparation was the neon paint. This was a scream, we were too tight to get painted professionally because each design was a fiver, more than our meal cost, but there were stands advertising paint yourselves for £1. The problem was that neither of us are very artistic, but the lady soon set her eyes on David and before he knew it he was absolutely covered. I attempted to draw a swan on his bicep because I keep joking with him that he needs a vet; his swans looked sick. But it turned out more like a standard duck. My swan was much more effective 😂.

The street was lined with stalls selling buckets of alcohol, there were 2 options, a sealed bottle of spirit and one mixer, or the cheaper option, a prepoured spirit and mixer. Again our old sensible selves, along with reading horror stories of the cheap option actually being ethanol we went into seven eleven supermarket and made up our own buckets with vodka and coke, and for a fraction of the price.

Once on the beach the crowds were gathering, all the bars playing a different style of music, we walked from one end to the other until we found David’s favourite thing to watch- the fire jump rope. Whoever thought this was a good idea was definitely on something, as just the people giving it a go. They basically get a really big rope and soak it in petrol before setting it alight and seeing who can skip into it. It was only a ,after of time until someone messed up and everyone in the middle got whipped with the burning flames. There was sometimes 6people in and often crack people over the face or get tangled in their legs, but people would go back in for another go, with their long hair down, holding their vodka……..literally playing with fire.

The toilets were chargeable so we went once and then it was joining everyone else on the beach peeing into the sea, we managed to find a quiet rock to pee whereas no one else was caring, pants down and pee into the sea in full view of the crowds.

We had good fun, another drinks trip to seven eleven, some more fire games to watch, including limbo on fire, jumping through fire hoops, and lots of fire jugglers.

We managed until about 230am when we started to have enough, people were passing out on the beach, glass and straws all over, people swimming in the sea that people were peeing in. Carnage! We had another 3 hours before the bus, it was difficult to keep going, without laying down to sleep on the beach.

Finally 5am came And we went to the pickup point, only to wait over an hour for the minibus. Grumpy David was making an appearance. A guy approached us saying he had just been robbed and had to get to koh samui, unfortunately we couldn’t point him in the right direction. It’s not surprising people get robbed, so man6 opportunities when people let their guard down! Once the minibus arrived the driver was letting random people on the minibus before the people booked on, this meant there wasn’t enough seats. We pushed our way to the front true Asian style and got on.

There was a 2 hour wait at the ferry terminal, all benches were taken over by sleeping bodies in neon clothes. David started to feel awful and just wanted back, even a cheese toastie didn’t do the trick! A British couple pulled out on a moped with a distraught girl who was in a mess, cut feet, exhausted. They had found her crying on the side of the road, separated from her group, no phone, no money, no ferry ticket. A lady let her use her phone to try and contact someone via Facebook, no one was answering. We bought her a bottle of water, and the couple took her to try and get her onto the ferry to take her home. As we got on our ferry we saw that she had thankfully been reunited. Just another full moon horror story!

The ferry was full but fine, when getting off at Koh Tao at the other end there was a huge line of people waiting to board, all laughing and staring at the state of us all….. biggest walk of shame ever!

Food, shower, bed in that order!!!

This morning we were on the boat for a sunrise River cruise at 6am. I am rapidly learning not to even attempt conversation with his lordship in the morning for at least 2 hours, I would rather have a conversation with the 3 metre Croc that was in the water just outside our resort, I’m sure his bite would be less severe!!!

The crocodile was the 4th out of 5 big borneo animals to spot, the last one hasn’t been seen for 2 months in

area;the pygmy elephants. We are not hopeful to see these.

On the river cruise this am it became obvious how encroaching the palm oil plantations are on the river banks, there2 is only actually a small strip of jungle at the river before they start, just enough to make it look ‘natural’ the only reason why we are seeing wildlife is because they are trapped here, after being driven to the riverside and unable to cross. Very upsetting and almost feel cheated in some ways! There was a huge dead crocodile upturned in the water, bloated up with air, floating in trash-such a shame to see, the river area is overpopulated with crocs so farmers can get a licence to shoot them, and Didi the tour guide was highly suspicious of this.

On the jungle walk after breakfast we didn’t see a lot at all, just got pestered by a lot of large buzzing bugs who seemed to like my hair, as soon as we stopped they were buzzing all around my head, I was trying not to be the squimish girl but I was screaming inside. The ranger said it was the shampoo and suncream I had used which was attracting them, David made sure I knew just how ‘massive’ the bugs actually were!! I was trying to use my ponytail as a whip!

We spoke to Didi about the situation in borneo, about the palm trade, and what the government are going to do about it. Many of the plantations at the riverbank have to cut the palms. Down in 2 years and replant native trees rather than palms, the government are now reviewing an proposed area to be farmed before its cut down. The mature tree will take around 50years to regrow, so even starting now it’s along way of being restored. She also told us about some plantations capturing orangutans for sick things like prostitution within the plantations…. Really what is wrong with people!

We had a walk down to the very tiny village, just 5minutes away to get An ice cream, and then back again before lunch was served, delighted that there were great options of tomato salads, spicy green bean salad and curried pumpkin!

At lunch there were 2 local men on the other side of the river doing flips into the water,but we could see crocs swimming, attracted by their splashes, they were playing with fire!

At lunchtime when we were sat in the main reception/restaurant the dead crocodile floated by in the current, even bigger than earlier, as if it was literally about to pop!! It actually looked like one of the inflatables you get for the pool!!

After a bit of down time, I tried to Take our stuff to the room but faced so many long tail Macaques on the way, and no people around, at one point I was on a boardwalk and I had a male infront of me, a mother and baby behind me and loads of youngsters in the tree above, I felt so intimidated with them all around, and eyeing up my belongings that I didn’t want to any further on my own incase I genuinely got mugged. I went back and got David out of his hammock, much to his amusement that the monkeys were intimidating me!

There was coffee and cake just before the cruise and that’s when the macaques swarmed, as much as the staff tried with broomsticks to stop them they had no fear and as soon as heads were turned for a second the cake and sugar packets were gone.

On the afternoon cruise we saw plenty again including a single juvenile orangutan up close in the trees on the bank, the orange colour of his coat really bright as the sun shone through. Later on we saw another family of 3 orangutans making their nest for later in the evening.

That night the staff put on a culture show, which was less of a show and more of a few dances which all the guests were to join in with, similar to things at home like macareena I guess. It was good fun anyhow and it got everyone talking, the last one was a game of limbo, David sat out of this one as he had no chance of even making the first level, instead he sat and laughed at my attempts saying my arms and legs are just like orangutans. The local men were really good at it, and were limbo’ing really low heights, their knees almost dislocating, they definitely put the westerners to shame.

Surprisingly David got involved in all the silly dancing, which is more than Brian who made a quick exit.

We didn’t bother with the night walk tonight because they are only around the trees near the lodges, and other than insects there isn’t much to be seen!!

5.45am alarm clock again….you think I would be getting use to it but nope!

This time though it was to go diving again to check out the marine life around Koh Tao. We left the dive shop around 6.30am to head for the boat and get out before all the other dive schools were able too. First issue arrived…..we were boat diving and not shore diving so this was unusual to us as we haven’t done it before. Our nerves were calmed when all you had to do was step off the boat or fall in backwards 😂

Once we started to gear up and put the swimsuit on we realised our next problem. They had packed a small swimsuit for me and a extra small BCD. We think they copied Becky’s line twice when packing the equipment up that morning. I attempted to get in the small but it was pointless couldn’t get it past my legs 😂 lucky one of the instructors had a spare….size large 😁

Once in the water it was pretty easy, follow the rope to the depth we were going and follow the dive master. Becky was my buddy and an American we met partnered the dive master (turns out he works for Instagram in New York) he laughed when we told him we don’t use social media anymore. Anyway he was useless in the water couldn’t follow simple instructions. We thought the marine life would be awesome here with what we have been told. Unfortunately not as it was full moon so the current was quite strong and the visibility very poor, maybe 6m or so compared to Philippines which was 15m. On our first dive we saw tropical fish, sting ray and lots of barracuda. Our next dive would take us to shark island. My eyes lit up!!!! Get in finally were going to see some action! Turns out theres no sharks in Koh Tao 😒 there is however a whale shark but hasn’t been seen in weeks, I didn’t keep my hopes up. The second dive was much better visibility and more marine life on offer. Becky and I partnered up again but problems started happening to me as my mask kept fogging up. I could barely see Infront of me it was that bad. The instructor was trying to show us different fish but I couldn’t see anything by that point. I was even removing my mask constantly to try and get rid of the fog. I resulted in leaving water in the bottom of the mask and leaning my head forward to clear the fog everytime it happened.

We decided to sign up for the advanced course after the full moon party as you can go deeper which means it will be a better experience plus if we ever want to go diving in future it’s worth having the extra depth.

Once diving was over we now had to organise our trip to Koh Phangan for the full moon party. Our first and best option was to leave here around 5.30pm and come back at 2am. This would have been perfect we thought. Our luck struck once again as we arrived to book this trip it was no longer running! Typical. Our only option then was to get the 5.30pm depart and the 8.30am return the next day. Which meant we had to stay up all night on the beach as the pick up from the party was 5am.

Our plans for the evening were pretty chilled. We decided to eat at one of the recommended restaurants from our travel book. Bang burgers it was called. A small walk amongst some hotels and shops we arrived at a little converted house. Becky was suspicious and the only veggie option was sweet potato Pattie. To her surprise it was very VERY good. We both had fries with extra BBQ sauce…..I was drooling when I seen BBQ sauce on the menu. It wasn’t like back home but it sure hit the spot.

Slow walk back to the hotel to chill out and get ready for the big one tomorrow! FULL MOON PARTY!!!!!

When we got off the ferry this morning it was just breaking dawn, the hotel.taxi didn’t start until 8am so we decided to walk the 2.5km direct route to the hotel, how hard could it be?? VERY, up and down coastal roads, very hilly and as soon as the sun.began to make an appearance the sweat fest began. We both must have stank after all the travelling yesterday and then this walk with 12kg on our backs. We finally got to the resort and we were initially very underwhelmed. Reception didn’t open until 730 and there were mosquitoes everywhere. We dumped the bags near the reception building, we were confused because it was right by the road although we had booked a beach resort and the name also confirmed this. I went for a walk to find the so called beach and left grumpy morning David at reception. Once I walked through the the resort a bit it became clear that we were on the beach near all quirky beach bars and restaurants and there was also a pool. Sorted.

At 730 we were shown our room, second floor garden view. Clean. Spacious. Perfect I thought but David didn’t share the same views just moaning that it was no 5star resort….. This went down like a lead balloon with me because we discussed these options in depth when we booked, a 5star resort at the other side of the island and no restaurant or bar options, or a younger resort with options to choose from and we both agreed on the latter which was exactly what we got.

We headed straight to bed for a couple of hours and he woke up a bit more human.

The first stop when we woke up was the diving school, roctopus, on our resort. They came.across very well.and they are one of the top on TripAdvisor so we booked 2morming dives with them for tomorrow morning, at 6am much to David’s delight but the morning is meant to be slightly better than the afternoon as there are less people in the water.

The beach here is beautiful, white sands, colourful taxi boats.

After a quick walk to see what it had to offer we settled at our beach resort with a cold beer and a book for the afternoon. As we sat people watching we noticed that a huge number of people were walking around with big white bandages strapped to the knees and ankles but sometimes even their heads!!!what was going on?where had we come to? It looked like a war zone!! There could only be 2 explanations, diving injuries on the rocks or moped road injuries. Much to my relief we later found out it was in fact tourists in mopeds up the hilly roads, and after our walk this morning I can believe it!!! There will be no mopeds for us here that’s for sure!

As the sun got strong we migrated to the pool in the shade. David clocked that it was happy hour 5-8 and the pool bar was perfect for watching sunset. We got a perfect table for the first cocktails. The sunset was beautiful, the best we’ve seen here yet, and it set behind the sea which was a first. We stayed a lot longer than anticipated watching. Some people took the paddle boards out for sunset- now added onto our list of things to do!

By the time we went out for food it was getting onto 9pm and already feeling the cocktails. We ate at a restaurant called su chilli and we struggled!! The place was heaving and there was no Aircon. We ordered a panang curry, mine tofu, David’s vegetables. It blew it heads off it was that spicey and with the heat of the place too we got so uncomfortable we had to just pay the bill and leave straight away.

Morning dive tomorrow!

Our final morning in Singapore and it was time to get packed up and ready for our flight to Thailand our final destination!!!

Our morning was very nice, omelettes for breakfast, playing with the dog and Paul going to check the tennis courts to see if they were free! Unfortunately they weren’t available……such a shame. Sally had made us a packed lunch for our travels which was fantastic, sandwiches/crisps/fruit/CHOCOLATE.

After saying cheerio to the Harris family and thanking them for a great weekend it was back to the airport.

Once we arrived at the airport we checked our bags in. Everything is automated here which is great and there is no hassle! Becky spotted some scales so we checked the bags and then I jumped on to see how much damaged 6 weeks of eating rice and drinking beer every day had done. It wasn’t great. I won’t say what it was but I will say I’m going on a fitness regime the minute I get back.

Becky was killing some time browsing the duty free when small Asian girl around 10 walked right up to her and just stood staring. She didn’t know what to do, looking at me then back at the girl and it was a very intense staring game she had, examining every bit of her face. Becky looked at me thinking what the #@#*, I just had to laugh and walk away as I couldn’t take it, leaving Becky with this little girl.

There was still time because the airport was so efficient. we took a seat and I clocked a table football so I challenged Becky to a game. She was wanting to write the blog as we were behind a few days (sorry gran there was no internet in the jungle!) But it was first to 3 goals. Turned out to be best of 5 games with 10 goals in each game deciding the winner. It was intense game and even some people stood around us watching, the sweat was dripping off us and it wasn’t even outside! I won the first two games just with Becky making a comeback in both. Her fatal mistake was never moving the goal keeper 🙈 her point was it’s only one person on it so why move it. 😂 On the third game a bet was made. Winner takes all with the loser writing the blog for the day’s missed. I couldn’t resist a bet and knowing I won the last two games I felt confident. However Becky started to use the goalkeeper……I shouldn’t have said anything before and it would have been even more comfortable……I won 10-6. Very close game with some choice words being used on both sides of the table when there was “luck” involved.

The airport here is amazing!!! So posh, even the loo’s could have been fit for photographs but we didn’t want any more funny looks!!!

As we arrived in Krabi the challenge begins. Our job was to get to Surat Thani and get a boat to Koh Tao. It was clear… Bus from Krabi airport to bus station……bus from there to Surat Thani and then get ticket for night ferry to arrive in Koh Tao at 5am. Seems simple. A bit different from the high tech, clean and organised Singapore, the shutter bus our bags just piled up randomly behind the driver

It was pretty simple, we were chucked off the bus as we got into Surat Thani after around 5 hours. Sally’s packed lunch was a lifesaver and was demolished on the bus! We were dropped at some makeshift ticket office for the ferry, we opted to carry on walking and get some legit tickets at the pier. As we walked along the road the bins had all been put out, a rat ran almost across our feet!

At the pier there were lots of street food stalls, even a little theatrical show,

after a walk along the front and a stop for a drink we found the ticket booth immediately next to the boat. The tickets were the same cost as the makeshift booth and she wasn’t budging on the price, we tried to find out what other travellers had paid but they had booked it as part of a package. Once on the boat we couldn’t help but laugh. Sardines was the only word for it, each passenger was allocated a yoga mat sized bed and the boat was full-150passengers. This 8 hour boat journey is going to be horrific. Then we spotted that at the end there were some full sized single beds on the top bunks with their own fans. I went to enquire about these but the lady either didn’t understand me or had no interest.

10 minutes later she came onto the boat and said 2 of the VIP beds were available but they would cost 200baht.for 2.. The best £5 spent all trip! We then started a trend, passengers trying to pay for the last available beds just to bag a decent night’s sleep. The next challenge was trying to brush our teeth, with no sink in board and only 2 holes in the floor toilets we brushed our teeth over the side of the boat!

I slept well, except the fan from the next bed was a bit chilly! David slept for around 2 hours which was an improvement from the sleeper bus.

This morning Sally and I took Jessie out for her morning walk at 730 before it got too warm for her. I really enjoyed this as I got to see places and interact with other dog walkers which you would get the opportunity to. Do. If you were just on holiday. The harbour is beautiful, modern and clean, and everyone here takes such pride and care in their dogs, there is many more pedigree breeds here too. They spread pesticide here once a week,’fogging ‘ which although gets rid of the mosquitoes seems a shame for the wildlife. They were fogging in Jessie’s usual route so we attempted a different way but she was having none of it and kept sitting down. Initially bribery with biscuits helped but we didn’t get as far as labrador Park!

We are being totally ruined by the Harris’s. Fresh fruit salad with yogurt and granola….after struggling to find anything like this for the last 2 weeks it was heaven!! After breakfast we headed to a fresh market, love this out here that you can go and pick all your food fresh and not in packets at the supermarket. All the fish stalls were great, they even save the fish heads for their speciality fish head curry which is apparently nicer than it sounds! Here we had a coffee and some brunch snacks of carrot cake, which is more of a turnip omlette and another Singapore special, popiah.

The next stop was China town, just a short bus ride away, all public transport here runs off prepaid cards which seems to work well and means the bus driver doesn’t have to handle money. Before we arrived at China town we went into a couple of arcades, Sally was trying to find a mahjong shop but the app wasn’t so accurate so we didn’t manage to find it! Such a nice city to walk around though, so clean, people seem pleasant, lots of respect for the city. Even the tower blocks have gardens in the sides and balconies so it has such a green feel to it even if its a big city.

China town had a really vibrant feel to it, its unfortunate we are on the last day of Chinese New year, can’t even imagine the buzz the place must have in the peak of it! We bought a couple of sets of chop sticks, one of the pig-it’s now the year of the pig, and one set of the horse, which is both of our birth year. They also have some. Beautiful painted bowls made from Coconuts, I would like to pick some of these up towards the end of the trip, when I make space in the bags, I’m Sure they will have them in Thailand too!

After China Town we visited a Buddhist temple, which housed a Buddhas tooth, retrieved after he was cremated. The building was stunning both inside and out, inside gold Buddhas lined the walls of the temple just like the temple in vietnam. Each Buddha is slightly different and is guardian of a different thing, like the 12 animals which the years are named after. Buddhists pray to their guardian and also donate money.

We know very little about Buddhism but what from what I’ve heard it’s seems good morals to live by, although the tooth on the 4thfloor, deemed to be Buddhas canine, was questionable. Remarkably similar in size and appearance to a horses tooth. The shrine in which this tooth was enclosed in was spectacular. I also like the fact that Buddhists are vegetarian, I think this may be because they believe in reincarnation. The cafe in the basement was selling really tasty looking vegetarian meals for a small donation. As we had already eaten we had black chinese tea…. Not everyone’s taste but I did t mind it too much, it was just too hot to drink.

We headed back for lunch, Sally was ticking all the boxes, a Greek salad with extra halloumi, such a refreshing change to veg and rice. We devoured it!! Before heading out for the evening we spent a few hours relaxing, I went for a swim and David hit the gym because there were no tennis courts free for him and Paul which was a bit of a shame! I managed 41 lengths before hitting the jacuzzi, and literally as I got comfortable in there David came out of the gym and accused me of spending all my time in there which was definitely not the case but I will just let him believe it!

That night we went to a rooftop bar called Mr storky’s, the entire city was lit up with the sunset and gave us a good vantage point for Paul and Sally to point out more sights. Instead of beer Sally and I went all out and hit the cocktails…. Well there was a lot of celebrating to catch up on, their new life in Singapore and our wedding… So we had 2 cocktails, afterall we can’t visit Singapore and not sample a Singapore sling!

The next stop was little India for a curry, we went to. A curry house called banana leaf, I was quite easily. Persuaded to share a fish head curry and it didn’t disappoint, David chose one with some cheese in it, he loved it too. After a few beers and lots of curry we were feeling super full, I was actually worried I was going to burst my new tailored jump suit that I got in hoi an. We both need to get back to the gym, 6 weeks of beer rice and curry is taking its toll!!

Our final stop of the evening was the region of kampong glam, just a short (and welcomed) walk away from little India. This area was quite quirky with quaint little shops and a pretty mosque,

There were small, side streets with independent restaurants and bars. We sat outside a Mexican close to a guitarist playing some tunes for a final cocktail, before bed!

Once we got back David and I took Jessie for a quick toilet walk, she wanted to paddling in the fountains now that it was cooler.

Tomorrow we head to koh tao.

We had no problems this morning getting to Singapore, airport was smooth, and I wasn’t complaining that the only coffee we could find was a Starbucks, what a treat! It was a bit strange having a vegetable curry on the plane at 930am but it was a meal all the same.

Singapore Airport is just something else, it felt like arriving at a 5 star hotel, carpeted, pristine, impressive chandeliers. There was an announcement on the plane to declare and weapons or drugs, even toy guns as it was a mandatory death sentence if these are brought in. On the plane the steward had handed out arrival cards but hadn’t handed us one, with us being the only westerners on the plane we thought maybe it’s only borneons that needed them… After queuing for customs for almost half an hour we actually did need one and had to go to the back of the queue, frustrating! Once we got our bags we were asked to scan our backpacks…we must have looked dodgy!

Next we were to get from the airport to the harbour front, again straight forward and stress free, except the ticket buying situation but once we had the right change we got there.

Public transport is really clean, there were lots of rules and regulations for on the MRT… I liked it!! The only strange thing we saw was a man with his friend videoing a random man with his 2 young children…. Quite odd. We followed the instructions Paul sent to David very closely, and soon arrived in the basement of their condo. We actually bumped into Paul coming out to work.

That afternoon Sally and Joe took us to see the sights of the city, and what a tour guide Sally was, especially at the garden by the bay with all the plants. Perfect! The cloud dome was beautiful, all different species of plants from different altitudes. I particularly liked all the wood sculptures;the animals in the branches and the totem poles. As we had a ticket for both domes we took a quick look into the flower dome and time for a photo but it wasnt as impressive as the cloud.

Once we had found Joe, who had gone for a macdonalds we walked over the helix bridge towards a hawker centre for a recharge with a lime juice and saw a family of otters from the river, they were absolutely massive, must have been the size of Baxter easily.

The lime juice was really refreshing and it was also really refreshing to see such clean food stands, I think we’re going to like this city.

Everywhere we walked there seemed to be something happening, from street shows, lion dancing rehearsals, water shows, fireworks.

We walked through the lobby of the Fullerton Hotel… Wow, it was stunning, but even more impressive was the view once we left through the back, along the river was the old singapore shop houses, with the sheltered pavements out to the front, the view was so Impressive with the big skyscrapers overlooking the more quaint restaurants by the river.

We met Paul after work in a rooftop bar overlooking the River, it was a great place to sit as the sun went down with a few beers and a catch up.

For tea Paul and Sally suggested a Spanish tapas by the river. We were all over this as it was a world away from rice or noodles. What a feast we had, made even easier as none of us were eating meat, except of course David who could not resist the chorizo on the menu!

After dinner we walked slowly back to the MRT station which also had underground shopping centres too! Paul mastered his selfie taking and was impressed that he managed to get everyone in first attempt.

We passed under a bridge that was projecting all different stats from around the world, amounts of straws, and plastic bags being used, births, deaths and populations, and it was real time and changing as we watched. A very good way of getting a point across.

We were all absolutely shattered after a few drinks and a good meal, back we went on the MRT to see Jessie, I was super excited to be able to fuss. David was really quiet initially when he saw her and I could tell he was missing baxter but it didn’t take him long to start fussing her.

Another 5.30am start…..was not pleased to hear that alarm going off. The temptation was very much there to turn back over and go back to sleep rather than do the morning river cruise again. I decided to get up and do it otherwise I would face the rath of Becky! (Not worth the hassle!)

Anyway on the cruise we didn’t see much as it was very misty, there was a couple of the usual monkeys and birds but no orangutan or crocodile. The highlight being the colour of the sky due to the sunrise it was unbelievable, that is until you see the palm plantation again and it just ruins it.

Back at the hotel for breakfast I couldn’t contain my excitement…..they had toast/scrambled eggs and baked beans. It was sickening the amount I ate but it was totally worth it!

Our flight to Kota Kinabalu was due at 3pm and we were leaving the jungle at 8.30am so there was no rush in getting to the airport. Our driver didn’t get the message as he was driving like a mad man, overtaking at every opportunity even on blind corners, I let out a few choice words being flung in the back from side to side.

We arrived at the airport around 10.30am decided just to stick the bags through so we didn’t have to carry them. Becky went for a walk outside for a bit, I had a look around the airport to see what there was. 1 shop, 1 restaurant and 2 mini marts. I checked online to see what was nearby if we could go away for a few hours then come back. Lucky the War Memorial park wasn’t that far away and since neither of us knew what happened here we gave it a bash.

The Memorial park is in recognition of the POW camp held here during WW2. Also it recognises the number of people killed during the death marches. Yip we had no idea all this went on during WW2 hadn’t learned about it in school. A reported 2,400 POWs from Britain and Australia were ordered to march by the Japanese from Sandakan to Ranau which is 260km. On 3 forced marches between January and June around 500 people died the rest died at either Sandakan or Ranau…..only 6 people survived till the end of the war. 2 of which escaped in the jungle during the walk. It was very interesting to read about and learn more of the history of the place. The Japanese used to torture the prisoners by making them eat dry rice followed by water.

The afternoon walk around was nice and unexpected it would have been a waste of time to just sit in the airport that entire time.

Our flight only took 40mins even if that, lots of waiting around for a very quick flight.

We used grab to get to our hostel once again as it was much cheaper than using the airport taxis. Our hostel was ranked as one of the best in Kota Kinabalu but seeing as it was Borneo was didn’t keep high expectations. Very simple room, bed with toilet and shower….it will do the job!

I had a look on TripAdvisor to find a nice local restaurant for our final night in Borneo. El Centro was ranked as one of the best plus it was only a short walk away. It had a nice atmosphere to the place, relaxed and laid-back I liked it! I liked even more they had fajitas on the menu! I didn’t even bother looking at the rest after Becky had told me that my choice was made, we shared them and of course it was vegetables, although there was chorizo mentioned as a side but I decided against it.

Since we were leaving the next day and didn’t want to exchange money we ended up having a few beers after the meal. Getting the bill after every round just to see if we had enough for 2 more or not.

We talked about Becky coming back out to do some volunteer work with the orangutans in the near future so watch this space!!

A great meal, nice drinks and a fantastic trip to Borneo. Next stop Singapore.

Today we were picked up from the sheraton Hotel. Before we were picked up. We tried to find some healthy food to take on the bus, no joy, the only thing we found were noodles again for me and cornflakes with milk for David.

We met an older couple, vicky and Brian outside the sheraton who were from Plymouth, they were also going on our tour. They were just travelling Malaysian borneo for 17days. They were sat eating macdonalds ice cream, we were sold, dinosaur mcflurrys it was.

The bus turned up and on we got, for a very bumpy 3hour journey via the airport and sepilok. It was so bumpy that at one point David shot off his seat, his Ipad going the other direction, luckily he made a great save and caught it! I thought this jungle trip was along the more untouched jungle but looking at the palm plantations the entire journey we aren’t going to get it!

When we arrived at the resort we had a quick bite to eat and then straight onto A boat for the afternoon cruise down the river. We WERE PRAYING for the borneo Big 5. We all donned a life jacket and about 12 of us on the boat off we went. It wasn’t long before we spotted proboscis monkeys, short and long tailed macaques, loads of different birds and hornbills, and then we saw them, 2 orangutans in the trees, a little distance but clearly visible without binoculars. I. Spotted them and vicky thought she had. But wasn’t sure, they took some pointing out to David but he saw them once they started to swing. DELIGHTED.

We then went to a smaller river off the kinabantagan where the Malaysian orangutan charity have put ropes and hoses from trees across the river to allow monkeys, particularly orangutans to cross because they can only swim if human teaches them, apparently orangutans can be taught anything that a human can be taught. At this area of the river there were gibbons and macaques again, and one with a tumour on its cheek! We checked in when we got back, a decent log cabin in the jungle resort, we are the furthest cabin which isn’t a bad thing because it should be quieter.

Dinner was decent in my eyes, different veg, tofu, amongst various meats and fish, but David had a face on him again about the food-he should just eat the meat but he is being stubborn that the only meat he will eat is on a pizza or in macdonalds!

The night walk in the evening was OK, not quite as good as the one at sepilok. We opted to borrow wellies, which was interesting because the sizes weren’t consistent and not very available so some people had one of one size and one of another. During the night walk we saw frogs, spiders stick insects, the odd bird and some very large geckos. Didi the tour guide was telling us that these geckos are also endangered, once again because of the Chinese medicine trade where eating one of these is claimed to cure hiv 🙄. She also went on to say that she used to state that the Chinese will eat anything except humans however there has been a recent article suggesting that this may also be going on…..how disturbing.

Breakfast was arranged for 6.30am with the boat leaving at 7am. Becky’s alarm goes off at 6.10am mine went off at 6.25am, enough time for the short walk across to the dining hall.

Boat trip back was fine just under an hour. Think the driver was in a rush as he was going at some speed. Once we arrived back it was a day off! We had nothing planned for the rest of today as our next trip wasnt till tomorrow when we go to kingtanban river.

Since we arrived back at the hostel early our room wasnt available yet so we sat at the rooftop terrace, Becky sorted the blog….I did what I do best….play football manager.

Once our room was ready Becky fell fast asleep straight away for about 3hours, nothing unusual there, I decided to plan our trip to the Thailand Islands as this was still to be done.

Couple of hours later Becky reappears with the suggestion of going a walk around to see if there’s actually anything to do or see. As we were going around Becky seemed to become dizzy with blurry eyesight and needed to sit down. After intially trying to hide from her, I found a seat nearby which was conveniently next to an ice cream shop 😁. After enjoying a well deserved cone for saving the day it was time to head back to the hostel to organise the bags and find a restaurant for tonight.

Our choice was the number one rated place from TripAdvisor. A rooftop Italian restaurant, the reviews were good (better than any other restaurants around). The place was nice to be fair, chill out atmosphere and not too bad views, just abit windy. During the meal Becky got a bit excited and hit my injured knee with the beer glass, I screamed out holding my knee which is still really sore from the coral, Becky found this even more hilarious ! Our usual bet of the evening was to guess how much the bill was and the loser had to pay (even though it was both our money). Becky played it safe with 75 so I said if it was lower then I win or higher then she wins. Becky’s horror to find out it was DOUBLE her guess. Yip 132, I thought no way did 2 pizzas and 4 small beers cost £25. They were having us on surely. Apparently not as they sneaky put extra charges which weren’t put in the menu, also the price of the beer wasnt in the menu either so that was a mistake on our part!

We headed back to the hostel after that to have an early night (as if Becky didn’t have enough sleep during the day), on the way back there were huge cockroaches coming out of the cracks of the pavement,the drains smelling horrific!

Not much at all happened today very boring 😣. First time on the trip I feel like I’m missing home…..well I miss Baxter anyway nothing else.

This morning after breakfast we shared a taxi to the jetty with a couple who have also been staying at the hostel. The taxi driver was a young local girl and she was so funny, telling us all about her fear of cats, dogs and plants, and that she couldn’t watch the turtles lay eggs because she felt sick at the site of things in big numbers. She got goosebumps whilst even discussing it in the car.

The group was made up of about 10 people, the 4 of us from our hostel, a young American family, a solo traveller from London and an older couple who I think were German. We got a speedboat out to the island which took about an hour, you could actually see a southern phillipino island from our beach which was pretty unnerving because there is a true risk of kidnapping by pirates from these islands, and travel to this region is not advised back at home; we knew we would be close to them but not that close:

We had a briefing before we were shown to our rooms, it involved tonnes of times in a schedule to remember which we were bombarded with! Our rooms were in the middle of the island, basic but decent, and comfortable. It was a quick change and to chill out and go snorkelling on the beach.

The beach was stunning, white sands and there was already hatched turtle egg shells on the surface if you looked closely.

Snorkelling was reasonable, there was no turtles to be seen because the tide was out and too shallow, but plenty of different coloured fish, plenty of clown fish protecting their young in the reeds, starfish, eels, sea cucumber.

David spent hours in the water just snorkelling around, but I had enough after an hour and was also very conscious of burning! After a quick sunbathe to dry us off it was lunch time- basic options, not much to report. As we were walking into lunch we caught a glimpse of something moving in our periphery, it was a huge lizard at least 3 foot long, just next to us, once we looked around there were actually quite a few of these monitor lizards all around us.

After lunch more snorkelling, sunbathing, and reading. David again spent hours snorkelling, I did just over an hour, he saw hundreds f fish feeding from a section of coral, and the noise of them eating is quite loud under the water, like a big bowl of rice crispies crackling away. A quick change before watching the sunset, I was talking to other people on the tour before sunset, pretty interesting group of people, a zookeeper from London, an American family who actually lived in Vietnam. Their daughter was profoundly deaf but she was unbelievable, you would not know she was with her level of communication and very grown up for just 4. And a British couple who had lived in Australia for 6years but were moving back home, via visiting Asia, the girl was actually Irish and she was so funny and entertaining.

Sunset was nice, not the most spectacular but very tranquil. After his we were to go and watch a video and visit the exhibition centre before dinner. At the turtle conservation park islands(there are 3 islands, on,y one open to the public) the 2 main species, green turtle and hawksbill turtle lay eggs all year round although there are peak times which differ depending on species….. Dinner, again average, David unimpressed with the food and bought Pringles and an ice cream afterwards. Then the wait began, we didn’t quite realise that we would need to wait for such a long time but it made sense, wild animals don’t work on an agenda. The Irish girl came in from smoking outside saying there were 2 guys outside in bullet proof vests carrying massive machine guns, when we told her it’s because of the threat of pirates she was gobsmacked, she had no idea this was a problem out here, she went back out to ask them why they had the guns and apparently they looked at each other and then said sheepishly, were here to protect the tourists from the enemy… well that was her away and her boyfriend looked panic stricken. Around 9pm we were ushered to the hatchery, (an outdoor enclosed space with hundreds of eggs buried.)As the turtles lay their eggs they move them immediately to the hatchery to protect them from monitor lizards, and other predators such as crabs and birds. Some of the nests were hatching and had loads of baby turtles within the nest ( a single lay can carry up to 140 eggs) some had also escaped and were zooming around the enclosure like one of those wind up toys, they have special magnets in their heads which they use as a navigation system in the earths magnetic field, so all of the hatchlings were trying to navigate to the sea.

The older German couple were trying to pick them up, for some stupid unknown reason, but they were quickly told by the group not to. Along the fence of the hatchery there was a dead and half eaten hatchling on top of the fence with hundreds of huge red ants eating away. It must have been a predator, a bird or crab, that had dropped it up there, although impressively this is limited by the islands cat who guards the hatchlings.

About one hour after this we were taken to the beach, machine gun man in tow, where a huge turtle, had dug a nest and was laying her eggs, whilst they do this they go into a trance and are unaware of their environment so we could watch right up close, within touching distance, but in very dim light, you could barely see the size of her, she lay 91pingpong sized eggs. Once she had finished they put the torches on a little brighter so they could take her measurements, check her for disease and check if she was already tagged, which she was, this meant she had lay on the Island previously. She was absolutely massive and so majestical. Once we had had a good look and taken photos we left her to return to the sea. We then watched the process of the ranger burying the eggs in the hatchery, putting the date and I’d of the turtle who lay them on a wooden stick. Once again the German lady went to grab the eggs…..

Next it was time to release the recent hatchlings, they took them from the hatchery to the beach in the opposite side of the island in a shopping basket, the baby turtles follow light and also the vibrations of the water into the sea they have a yolk sac which provides them with food for up to a week, until they learn how to survive in the sea. We all sat by the shore and the ranger stood in the sea with a light, when the turtles were released, the majority made their way down to the sea immediately, some needed a little guidance, one tried to climb up David’s foot.

That night there were 14 more landings and 11more laying, with a total of 840 eggs, these are all now in the hatchery and will hatch and be released in the next 40-60days. They also released 400hatchlings over night, unfortunately only roughly 1% of these will survive, with their program they are seeing many more nestings, hopefully contributing to their survival!

Bus was due to arrive at 10.30am to transfer us to Sandakan for the next few days. Bus never turned up so we had to grab a taxi instead, only £4 in a taxi so wasn’t that bad to get dropped off outside the hostel. As we waited for the taxi we took some photos outside sepilok. Sanctuary

As we arrived at the hostel no one was answering the buzzer, lucky a young guy came along to let us in and give us our key to the room, then he left again. Hostel was very odd, there was no reception just several floors with two bedrooms on each. Becky was suspicious about the situation, I didn’t really care as it was a bed for the night. Since our room wasnt ready we decided to take a walk towards Crystal Quest office to book our Turtle island tour for tomorrow. The office was only 2.5km away so we decided to walk rather than spend £1 on the taxi. As we were walking up the hill flashbacks of Cambodia came rushing back to me. It was a Saturday and around lunch time. What if the office is closed on weekends!!! Becky confirmed that the office was open via Google maps. I asked her to double check few minutes later as well I didn’t believe her……now it was closed….how can it be open one minute then closed the next!? It was across the road by that point so we went across anyway. Turns out it shuts at 12pm on Saturdays and we arrived there at 12.15pm.Luckily they let us in anyway (should have just got the taxi but we got on the tour anyway!)

Our next job was to find a cafe and chill out for a bit, give us some time to sort out a river cruise which we are planning in the next few days. Walking along the waterfront there was a few restaurants but not much that we would feel comfortable eating in. There was a mall round the corner from out hostel so McDonald’s it is. I was craving a milkshake and they didn’t have any! Typical!I did settle for a McFlurry party…..intended for sharing, basically like 3 McFlurrys in one, with sickening amount of chocolate on top. I couldn’t finish it my eyes were bigger than my belly.

Back at the hostel Becky was still not sure of the whole situation regarding where we were staying, she just didn’t feel comfortable. We were sat on the bed looking at tours and hotels for the next stage of the trip and random guy walks into our room just to check the windows!!!?? Didn’t knock or anything just straight in towards the window. I questioned Becky right away as she booked this hostel. It was booked via booking.com and not the usual Hostelworld. I checked the reviews on Hostelworld and it had 1 review only!!!!! There were two hostels left and she booked the one with only 1 review and the other had 100+, something didn’t add up here. Turns on booking.com there was over 100 reviews….all of them really positive and good….can’t be the right place surely.

We checked how much it was to stay a the other hostel (3 doors down) which looked much better than the one we were already in. After a short visit we choose to move hostel instead of staying in a place were we didn’t feel comfortable. What a decision that was, maybe the best so far. I was back in charge of booking hostels from now on again 😂

This new hostel was celebrating Chinese New year with a free meal and free beer tonight so we were all over that! Not much else to do in Sandakan to be honest its more of a base to travel to other hotspots. We sat in the roof top terrace for a few hours, Becky falling asleep on the hammock and I looked into the Thailand Islands and also played FM.

Before our Chinese New Year celebrations began we walked over to the 7/11 to grab a few beers and snacks. As we walked backed Becky received a text from the old hostel asking why we had left. Becky politely put we had booked on tours and no longer needing the room.

During our meal we chatted to some Dutch couples who had just booked a flight to a remote island which is meant to be unbelievable only find out its closed until March! Chatting the night away we headed off to bed before our overnight stay on Turtle island tomorrow……well we thought so anyway until we realised there was a karaoke stall on the street outside and we had no chance of sleeping! I just don’t get it, karaoke would be good if you could actually sing but 99.9% of what we’ve heard so far just can’t sing.

Slept great given last night’s ordeal! Head hit the pillow and was out like a light.

Today is the day Becky has been waiting for…..the orangutan sanctuary….but first brekkie….buffet style! Id gone for the toast and beans and Becky the noodles with fried banana (how she ate that for breakfast I’ll never know)

The sanctuary didn’t open till 9am but we were there at 8.30am waiting in anticipation 😂 we decided to check out the information centre first as we had time to kill which gave more details about the orangutans.

The sanctuary is made up of a junior section and a separate food platform. All of which you reach via wooden walkway’s. As we headed towards the junior section we got stopped by a ranger as an orangutan was casually walking along the walkway. You had to stay 5m back from them. The excitement was building already.

As we reached the junior section we decided to sit next to the window rather than sit back on the seats. We were like two little kids at Christmas waiting for our presents. Out they came hand in hand with a ranger. They use this section to teach the orphaned babies found in the wild how to climb, play, forage and also a feeding area. It was awesome to watch, I became very jealous of there flexibility straight away 😂

We spent around 30mins sitting watching them play and mess around before a giddy Becky suggested we go to the feeding platform early to get the best spot! She wasn’t wrong we were the first ones to arrive a cool 30mins early again but who cares we had our pick of the place! A ranger came up to put fruit around and lucky there was a mum with her baby already waiting, and getting impatient stood at the top of the step tapping her foot😂

Must have been there before us 😂 after 15 mins or so there was a ruffle in some trees next to the food area….it was like something out of Jurassic park just waiting for the T-Rex to come out. It wasn’t a T-Rex but it was an adult male…..huge…..no joke this thing must have weighed at least 80kg. No surprise that the other orangutans left as it was time for the alpha male to feast!

The sanctuary was closing for a few hours so we decided to head across the road to the sun bear sanctuary to catch a glimpse at the smallest bears in the world.

As we walked along the viewing area we spotted a couple in the shade behind a tree so we parked up to watch for a while. They started rolling around and wrestling each other which was good fun. A ranger was giving us more information on them as all the bears were ex pets……who would want a bear as a pet I don’t know. Anyway he was explaining that one of them depended so much on human contact and would self harm repeatedly to get medical attention as it’s only form of human contact 😣. Our battles against the nationalities came again in the form of two very fat Australians being very loud and disturbing the bears…. Becky’s face said it all….I kept my mouth shut for once. We walked away and headed towards the other viewing area for a look. Lucky for us it was lunch time for the bears where we stood. Rangers throwing different fruits and nuts into the area. The bears are more confined than the orangutans next door, they aren’t allowed to leave the sanctuary whereas he adult orangutans are free to go where they want, as we found out last night! anyway as we seen those fat Aussies heading our way we decided to go grab some lunch before heading back to see King Louis 😁

Walking back to our hostel we noticed a makeshift cafe so we decided to eat here. Language barrier once again and the local couldn’t understand English or read it in her own language……she was a decent cook though…. vegetable fried rice with eggs….we ordered one to share but with the barrier she ended up making two to Becky’s surprise……eat up and shut up that’s the motto 😁

There was a presentation taking place at 2pm which we didn’t want to miss and another feeding time at 3pm. The presentation was all about the sanctuary and a charity which helps fund the area and other causes. Becky holding back the tears watching one of the animals being released back into the wild and I was trying to keep my eyes open. The video was great but put me in a dark room and my head started nodding back and forward. The video ended with the charity asking to adopt an orangutan……..TOO RIGHT! ( That would have to wait as it was feeding time).

Our walk towards the platform was cut short as once again there was an orangutan on the platform walking along the edge this time though he was not interested in going back in the trees but along the walkway towards us! The ranger kept telling us to move up and up and up until the orangutan was rushed away with a ranger holding a stick……Aye what’s that going to do if it comes for you…..it moved on to our disappointment as it was amazing to see it so close….worth the risk if you ask me.

The mum and bab showed up at the nursery for feeding time, she was teaching how to forage!

Standing at the feeding ground once again. There were lots more around us this time compared to this morning which was great to see. The best was yet to come as at the main feeding station the ranger once again shouted for everyone to move to another area as…..THE BIG ONE WAS COMING…..had a chuckle to myself as it was funny hearing him shout it. This beast comes along the walkway too heavy to swing from the trees to has to walk on the ground most of the time. It decided to sit on the railing and just watch us all. It must have been maybe 5m or 6m away from us and if it decided to attack we were f#*”ed.

It cleared away the food area again with all the other orangutans deciding to hang from the ropes around otherwise there would have been trouble. A ranger told us this was actually a wild dominant male, who had come to the sanctuary on its own accord in the search for a mate, and here it seems to stay, and is approximately 70-80kg. The flanged face and the muscle development takes about 9months to grow (or lose) when it comes into dominance.We got to view it for maybe 15mins or so until we were told the park would be closing and we had to leave 😒.

Tonight’s plans are to head to the other hostel for tea as it’s the more expensive place to stay so the food should be good and tomorrow catch a bus to Sandakan.

We decided to get on the 8am bus to sepilok, it was going to take roughly 6 hours. We got to the bus station for 715am and got a ticket. We had had breakfast at the hostel so just got straight onto the bus. The driver seemed happy to drop us at sepilok junction rather at the final stop in sandakan.

Initially the scenery coming out of the city of Kota Kinabalu was beautiful, with the silhouette of mount Kinabalu, a little bit of rainforest, still a fair amount of roadside trash. As we ascended up into the hill range the bus seemed to be struggling with the incline and after about one hour the driver pulled up and all the men got off, and were all staring at the engine. The driver was revving it before it seemed to cut off. Eventually we were all told to get off, as the 9am bus was behind us. As soon as we all got off the driver got ours working again so we all piled back on…. it lasted the full journey but didn’t sound as though it was going to!

Once we were through the hills the rainforest quickly disappeared and was replaced by plantation after plantation of palm trees, I was aware of this before we came out, but I don’t think you can begin to understand the extent of the problem until you see it first hand. The forest has literally been bulldozed to make way for human provisions. Criminal. Unsustainable. Heartbreaking. The more I saw it the more it upset me, no one else seemed aware, or bothered on the bus. There is literally nothing left out here and it’s all because there are too many humans to feed and fulfill their greed. This trip certainly isn’t instilling our faith in the human race! I took some photos and videos because I’m going to do my best to raise some awareness about this… the problem comes with demonstrating the extent of the issue. It’s definitely too late for the orangutan, and other species. Orangutan are humans closest relatives with 96% the same genes yet were killing them. 300million trees have been cut down for palm oil plantation in 20years, cutting their habitat by 55%. They expect the population of orangutans to reduce again by 50% in the next 20years.Will our next generation forgive us for being so cruel and wiping out wildlife, preventing them experiencing it?!

Once we arrived, there were no taxis as the internet had promised there would be. So we made the 2.4km walk with our bags down the road. Another sweat fest. We made it to the jungle resort, the orangutan sanctuary is literally next door.

We got checked in and went to the cafe for some lunch, the resort is set beautiful, wooden raised walkway, a small lake with fish, trees. Really in the wildlife.

We booked an evening jungle walk just at the rainforest discovery up the road, it’s between 6-8pm, up in the canopy walk and on the ground too. We got to see the flying red squirrel and it really does jump from a height and fly! On the ground it was really dark, it was a case of spotting eyes in the lights. We saw green venomous vipers, huntsman spiders, frogs, caterpillars, fire ants, tarsiers, some monkeys in the canopies. David started complaining he had something on him, and something was biting him. He had a leech on his waistline, about a centimetre in length, latched on. The guide wasn’t fussed, he just said to pull it off. David was having none of it so the guide pulled it off.

We had a light meal in the cafe before heading back to the room for bed, the wildlife definitely makes an appearance at night here… we headed back to our building, the resort is quite big, and as soon as I looked into the corridor I saw something that massively resembled a orangutan. I didn’t believe my eyes, I have been looking for one the entire day and the first one I though I had seen was inside the hotel. David said it was definitely an orangutan but I was convinced it was someone pulling a prank on me because I was so desperate to see them. David was highly amused when I suggested it was merely someone dressed up….. until we tried to approach it and it clocked us, it was a real orangutan, and it was trying to get into rooms and reach under doors!!!!

Although quite funny it was quite a dangerous situation to be in, being times stronger than humans if this thing felt threatened it would flatten us. After attempting to get a quick, but poor photo, David stayed outside the block looking down the corridor in case anyone tried to go in and I went back to the cafe to get staff. On the way back to the cafe I saw a huge scorpion casually walking down the path.

2 men came and guided the orangutan out using a broom handle (!!!) as protection. They followed it outside for a little while to make sure it didn’t come back. David said as I went to get someone the ape was rolling down the hallway and generally just messing about 😂😂😂, unfortunately I had taken the phone so he couldn’t get anymore photos. Hopefully he reappears tomorrow night!

I was desperate for it to come back so we could see it again. Maybe an hour later I heard a noise in the hallway, I was convinced it was back, David gingerly looked out the peephole and couldn’t see anything, so slowly opened the door, before shutting it really quickly, panic across his face. I was on top of the world, he was back, but David quickly corrected me, instead he had seen a huge flying insect, with loads of legs, what he described as chunky, black, and bigger than his shoe on the wall opposite our room. He locked the door and went to barricade it with his rucksack saying he won’t sleep in this place, by this point I was howling. A bag at the door isn’t going to stop an orangutan or an unknown flying insect!

Let’s see what tomorrow brings- if we make it that far!

Early start once again as our taxi to the airport was due to arrive at 7.30am. Check in at the airport actually went smooth for once no rushing or running through airports this time!

We decided rather than eating in Cebu we would wait and get something in Manilla as we had a few hours to kill before the flight to Borneo.

Flight was fine only took an hour or so plus we weren’t sitting together so I could play football manager and not have Becky’s head falling against me sleeping! 😁

Once we checked in it was time for some lunch. There was a massive food court with lots of options but as we had pizza twice in Philippines we decided to go for a place called ArmyNavy which had some burritos and quesidilla. Becky gone for the vegetable burrito and I, sticking with me being veggie out here went with the chorizo.(couldn’t help myself I’ve been craving chorizo for weeks!)

With time on our hands we walked round the airport deciding to go through security early get a seat and have a snooze. As we were going through security there was a woman with a sash on…Becky was intrigued as why would a woman travelling be wearing a sash? Turns out it was Miss Sweden……why would you wear a sash when travelling? Talk about attention seeking! She wasn’t even that good looking! All of the locals were asking her for photos😂

We found our gate and Becky was off to sleep while I sat and watched the basketball on the TV.

The flight wasn’t too bad either (we were sat separately again) until one of the stewardess comes over the tannoy to announce that someone has lost something and could they come and collect it. It was a well designed plan to get the kid to the front of the plane and announce that it was his birthday and everyone was to sing happy birthday. In typical fashion the Asians loving there karaoke went for it! The kid got a present and a gift from the airline, just when we thought it was over and then the stewardess says she would give us one more tune, and breaks into the leaving on a jet plane song!!!! I was trying not to laugh and it had woke Becky up so she was a little confused to the situation but tried to record it on video.

Our next objective was to get some cash and find out way to the hostel. Decided on using the grab app (basically Uber) just so we could get to the hostel and maybe see a bit of the city as we were leaving early the next day.

Hostel was basic. Private room with a shared bathroom, it will do for the night just a bed to sleep on I suppose.

Walking along the waterfront at night was nice we came across a night market which was full of stalls with fruit and more so fish. Any type of fish you could think of and they were selling it. The Tunas were massive! Becky was a little unease as the crabs were still alive but tied up only to be thrown on the BBQ to be cooked. We never ate at the market as Becky didn’t want to encourage the treatment of these animals and I didn’t want food poisoning before a 6 hour bus journey tomorrow!

As we kept walking a Japanese restaurant was an option, neither of us had ever had Japanese food before so in we went! The menu was full of meat options but since we were both veggie 😉 they would substitute the meat for vegetables. The meal was really good, both gone for the curry which came in a hot plate.

After dinner we decided it was best to head back up to the hostel and organise tomorrow trip plus have a look at some day trips we might end up doing in sepilok or Sandakan.

Last night we had a great meal in a restaurant called maribago grill, although they found it strange because we didn’t want meat, even the vegetarian section of the menu was with pork, chicken or shrimp. The restaurant was set like a garden with indivual bamboo huts within the garden. We sat in the normal restaurant because David didn’t want to get eaten by mosquitoes, but he did anyway. The meal we had was eggplant and broad beans cooked in coconut milk and green chillies. Really nice and huge portions, one dish did the both of us.

After dinner we wanted to go and play pool, we had spotted a billiard room the day before so we went to there but in walking in David noticed straight away that there were no pockets in the tables, one white, one yellow and 2 red balls.

It was Korean billiards! The staff attempted to tell us the rules but it just made no sense so we left. That was our nights plans down the pan. With not many more bars in the area we waked up to the hotel resort next to us for one drink. Wow the facilities were incredible, all Koreans again, looking up the price of a room informed us it was £264 a night! No wonder. The complex was huge, a waterpark as well as the hotel. We just stayed for one, and then headed back for the evening.

We didn’t have much planned for today, more of a lazy morning, picked up some fruit for breakfast from the supermarket, Becky had some banana and jackfruit pastry thing for breakfast. Was quite nice actually. We then went on a mission for a beach to lie on…. Not a hard task when staying on an island we thought, oh how we were wrong! It seems that all the decent beaches in the area have been bought by the big hotels, and although you can use them you have to pay a high entrance fee of over a tenner each-no thanks!we tried our best to act cool and sneak into the hotels thinking we would look like typical residents but again we were wrong as all the hotels are occupied by Koreans so we definitely stood out like a sore thumb. We stumbled upon a beach club, just 150pesos to get in.. Sorted! The beach wasn’t the best but we had somewhere to sit and lie for a few hours, it looked like the place most locals go, there were a few new years parties on also. The entertainment choice at these parties is interesting, they like to watch men dressed as women just act daft for a few hours, they found it hilarious!

2pm came and we decided to go back up to the laundry in the hope that our clothes were ready, we were a little bit nervous that the shop would be shut, or the clothes not ready given it was Chinese New year, and then we would both be without clothes for flying out tomorrow. The walk up to the laundry was hot, the sun was really strong today, all the kids playing in the street just stared at us and wanted to say hi. The clothes were ready and packed as promised! What a relief!

We went back to the room to put the clothes in. It was a reasonable half hour walk. Once back we got a soft drink and sat on a couple of sunloungers at the bar watching the people learn to dive and the boats coming in. I decided to go for a quick dip before we showered, the water was really nice and calm. As I sat drying off we saw a young phillipino boy in the water, he was picking all of the big, unusual starfish out of the water, some were green and purple even and bigger than my hand. He was giving them to his sister on the land…. Not a chance, I went over and told them to put them back before they died, the girl gave me a strange look and put them back in the water next to her, so in I went and moved each one to the deeper water, out of the way of the tourists by the rocks. In the process of doing this I snapped my flipflop. Another thing to go and buy tonight! 10 minutes later the same boy, couldn’t have been older than 6 was in search of the starfish on the deeper water and diving down for them, his dad was just across the water sat on a rock drinking beer. So frustrating but luckily I didn’t see him take any out of the water this time.

In the evening we went back to the same restaurant as last night, I got some cheap flip-flops on the way but I’m not convinced how comfortable they will be! They only had my size in white, they don’t do big feet out here.

This time we sat in a bamboo hut, we asked the waiter to help us with the menu, because it wasn’t very descriptive. Even all the vegetarian dishes included things like pig brain….. They just don’t do vegetarian out here, so we ended up with the same as last night. In the way back we thought we would go and have a laugh at the karaoke bar, we went up and security asked David if it was for karaoke, he said yes, only to find out it was individual booths you booked out. We made a swift exit and went over to the bar we went to the first night, we sat on the balcony and just watched, all the tricycles, the brightly painted buses, people interacting.

Then bed time, we fly to kota kinabalu, Borneo in the morning.

Breakfast in bed! You couldn’t buy it……actually we did, it just arrived 15 mins early when Becky was smothering herself in suncream and me snoring on the bed. Couple of pancakes with omelette went down a treat.

Our short one minute walk to the meeting point to catch up with our diver instructor King to see what the plan was for today.

Think King had a rough night as it seem he couldn’t be bothered today and knew he wanted an early finish. Didn’t bother us too much as Becky didn’t sleep much for being nervous about going 18m deep.

As we were gearing up ( wet suits are very difficult to put on might I add) Becky noticed her oxygen tank was making a strange hisssssss noise that didn’t exactly calm her nerves so King switched it out for another one. The tasks for today we’re simple, how to take your BCD (vest and air tank)off in shallow water and open water, how to work a compass in shallow and open water plus removing the weights from our body and refitting them.

Into the water we go! Much quieter than yesterday and the water even more calm which made it easier to put our fins on. First task was removing weights and putting them back on. Fairly simple unclipped and let go Infront of body and then put back on as if on land.

Second task was slightly more tricky taking the BCD off and then putting it back on. I went first and struggled a little bit when trying to put it back on as my arm kept catching part of the equipment. Becky was a pro and did it no bother! I was well impressed.

Out to open water we went around 6m deep. King pulled a fast one and asked us to remove the mask and put it back on again. HATED doing this as I couldn’t rub my eyes after putting the mask back on. Becky’s hair tangled under the strap everytime, and had no choice but to yank it out to get it back on

It was onto the BCD work, I went first again and the minute I take mine off it sunk to the bottom hitting the sea bed. This time though it was easier to put on and both Becky and I passed with flying colours 😁.

With those being completed we worked on our buoyancy control in deep water reaching 17m deep, Becky’s nightmares were soon eased and she was enjoying it!!!!!!All the stress before and nerves and she’s loving it! It was a great feeling knowing she was fine and giving me the 👌ok all the time. We headed back up to complete our dive logs and take a break.

During our break King was teaching us how to work the compass underwater. Becky cracked it straight away I just followed her at first until I got the hang of it.

Gear up once again for our final dive of the day until Becky had to change her oxygen tank AGAIN 😂 I was responsible for the camera and not to lose it.

Our final dive was much more relaxing and we finally reached 18m deep! Woohoo! King took the camera to take a few pictures and also a couple of videos. I accidentally touched the coral just when swimming and did NOT realise how sharp it was. Stung in the sea water but the cuts are merely paper cuts. On our dive we managed to see Scorpion fish, sea slug, Moray eel and some sort of sea horse. Not much around as it’s a very popular dive training centre with multiple companies working out of the bay.

WE ARE NOW QUALIFIED DIVERS (to 18m deep)

As we finished earlier than expected our next job was to find a laundry place as I was down to my last t-shirt and shorts and Becky was running low. Our journey took us into the local area of Maribago where the locals would just stare at you constantly….haven’t they seen westerners before with red sunburn marks over their face and hands? Anyways we carried on till we found the laundry service. Turns out we had to pay double for a quick turnaround as we are flying out on the 6th to Borneo and I have NO clean pants left so I was happy to pay!

A quick stop off for a bite to eat, Becky opted for the pineapple rice and I went for the fries. The service was typical phillipino style of take the order then wait like 15mins and then bring Becky’s food out first and make me wait another 5mins or so. Straight to the 7/11 afterwards for crisps and water for the afternoon.

Chill out afternoon with Becky sitting on a little veranda, blog writing, wat Hong the local boatd and I fell asleep for a bit only to wake up to Becky breaking in shouting theres a crab in the room! After a little drama, Becky scooped the tiny crab🦀 up and returning it safely back to the water. We planned tomorrow……beach, we were looking at island hopping tours but they were just too expensive for what it was and we would rather spend the money on tours in Borneo.

Bright and early start again this morning, we were told by the staff at the oxygen bar it was an 8am start so we we’re up, fed, and packed up by 730am we were moving to a room at kon tiki marina for the next 3 nights which is where we do our course from.Davids eye was a little better this morning. Once we had arrived we were in fact informed that the start time was 9am. Not to worry.

Our instructor King (it was a nickname) met us 840am, and took us to the dive shop which is actually still being built, he gave us a basket each for the next 2 days, and filled it with all random bits of kit….. scattered across the floor. Our initial thoughts were, what is this? But again we went with it. We then sat down and did a final knowledge quiz to summarise our theory reading and sign more disclaimers.

The first thing we learned is how to set up our kit, this was quite full on, considering we are new beginners and the breathing kit is pretty essential. But actually it was more straight forward than it looked. Once we were shown once that was us assembling our kit each time with new cylinders ….so many phrases seemed appropriate here, since or swim, do or die. As we were now scuba buddies we had to do the 5 point checking system once the kit was on to check for any mistakes. Our lives were in each other’s hands 😂. The kit was so heavy!!!!

Next into the water we went, there are 5 confined sections and 5 open water sections, the confined water bits weren’t in a pool, rather the shallow water at the marina, it was still quite choppy and difficult to get your balance once the fins were on. I almost bailed out in the first bit, we went from a few confined skills, such as swapping from snorkel to regulator, replacing regulator if its knocked out to repeating these in the open water section, by open water we are talking depths of 5-6m, but I just started freaking out, the different breathing, loss of hearing and peripheral vision and trying to control yourself in shallow choppy water was overwhelming, David said the petted lip came out and he could see I was fighting back the tears, I kept signalling I was ok when all I was doing was fighting the overwhelming urge to swim to the surface and have a fit. David was literally like a fish to water, he aced it straight away, no fear. With a bit of time with king helping me breath etc I finally got used to the breathing but I still had the absolute fear. I hated David going out of my site even at just 6m because the only signalling was with vision and I couldn’t see if he was ok with him out of vision.

Once we had finished some further drills, taking the mask off and on under water, sharing air supply, rescuing regulator sets it was lunch time, I was ready to pack it in, David absolutely aceing it and loving it. I had a decision to make, but more desperately trying to get out of a wetsuit to pee, David just let it go in the water!

After sandwiches at the bar we chatted and I calmed down a bit, determined to finish the day, dead or alive! The afternoon involved a bit more bouyency drills, the thing that scared me the most because get this wrong and shoot up to the surface can be really bad. Once again David managed well…..I got through it. The final dive of the day was 8m, David did his best to hold onto me side by side just for the reassurance he was there and ok. We didn’t know how deep we were going until we followed him, and that was unnerving for me because we suddenly hit a coral drop with just a blue wall, I thought we were heading down here and again started to panic inside, but the more you antic the more you float so I had to calm it down! We didn’t go down. Towards the end of this dive my confidence went up and I actually started to enjoy it!!!!

Once we had washed down the kit, and had a shower we had to go and swap hotels, and get more cash out, Philippines is really not so cheap! We went by 7 eleven on the way, basically a spar, and picked up supplies. The security guard in here was so funny, really cheesy American accent, singing to the cheesy songs on the radio. We’re surprised here that although English isn’t their native language, they use this predominantly, all the signage and communication. The people here are also on the whole friendly, they look very different to Vietnamese, as they aren’t so petite and carry a bit more weight about them.

Finally checked I got the new room, and hats when we looked in a mirror to see that we had really caught the sun today, we both had mask marks and I have burnt hands from the wrist down….. looking lovely.

We went to the same pizza place as last night in the end, were limited for food choices because it’s not so touristy, and it was awesome and very cheap for the meal you get, this time we remembered bug spray as it’s open-air. Again just soft drinks, being sensible for diving, we will celebrate with a few tomorrow night, the plan is 18m depth tomorrow… particularly if I get that far!!!!

Bit of a rubbish travelling day for David considering it’s his birthday! Very difficult to make it special when we were catching public transport all day to the next place, lapu lapu. It started with very busy ferry terminal, and no animal xraying this time. I sat and flew through my diving theory as once again, after backing out a few days ago, I have decided to go ahead and join David on the padi course. He has (finally) been writing the blog the last couple of days so I can get the reading done.

Once back in cebu it was a public bus to a mall, attempted to get David some eyes drops because for some reason his eye has become swollen and bloodshot. Frustratingly, but also very impressively, they would only give him moisturising drops, as they have started a antibiotic awareness…. I’m Impressed!

We attempted to get on a makeshift bus to our final location maribago, a couple of locals tried to help us find a bus but in they end they said it was too difficult to get to and advised a taxi. Taxi it was.

The taxi took us to a marina with hundreds of dive shops. Diving must be the main attraction to this place. We couldn’t find our dive shop and I was getting impatient because I had to get a doctor to sign paperwork to allow me to dive, the doctor back at home failed to get the documents done in time which meant I had to visit a doctor here, and probably a hefty price! It was getting to 4pm on a Saturday and we had no idea where to get this done, it was also the divers day off!! Luckily they replied to an email informing me the doctors is 600m away.

After asking strange questions like ‘are your legs strong?’, and listening to my chest with what seemed like a toy stethoscope, the doctor signed it for a fee of £10.

Phew

It was now time to chill out and concentrate on celebrating David’s birthday! We spent a short time browsing the shops and stalls ; he also got a thresher shark keyring to remember the diving he was about to do for his birthday, and a chocolate cupcake with crazy icing.

That night we put some nicer clothes on, David even cracked out his tailored shirt from Hoi An and we went to a local pizza place for a huge meal. Unfortunately we couldn’t have a cocktail because of diving but we made up for it in pizza!!

Final few (soft) drinks in a final bar before hitting the sack, I fancied a coffee but they completely ruined it by putting spices like nutmeg in it.

Undrinkable.

Early rise this morning again as our hostel arranged “tour guide” was picking us up at 8am. Decided to go for the eggs and toast this morning rather than the pancakes which was a nice change. Still don’t get how people can eat rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Our “tour guide” arrives on time….his first question….where do you want to go today??? As you can imagine having a few too many the night before neither of us were in the best of moods this morning so I let Becky answer that one. Thinking we had booked onto a guided tour we only had a vague idea of popular things on the island…

Turns out he was just a driver that the hostel had got us to drive us around all the “tourist” attractions. GREAT!

Our first stop was the chocolate hills about an hour away. My head started to nod and before you know it I was fast asleep, Becky not being too impressed with that as the driver was trying to make conversation gave me a few elbow shots to the ribs to wake me up. I just kept falling asleep and the driver even handed me a travel pillow ,she gave up trying to keep me awake in the end.

The chocolate hills were actually really cool to see. It’s made from limestone and the reason they call them it is because in the summer they turn a chocolate colour due to the sun. As we walked up a few more stairs to the top of the viewing point we were once again treated to fellow tourists posing for photos.

Now the best part of the holiday by far….some guy was trying to look through the binocular set that was mounted in ground….. the wrong way round. I almost fell to the floor laughing. He kept trying to look round to see the hills and couldn’t work out why he couldn’t see it.

More and more tourists were posing for photos so we decided to have a go,half taking the Mick out of them.

Think we should just stick to smiling in future.

Back to the car and it was off to our next stop the butterfly sanctuary. We were greeted with a guide who spoke great English, it must have been near her lunch break as we flew through the butterfly sanctuary…no pun intended 😉. She was keen to take pictures of us throughout so why not eh? When we reached the enclosure section she said they must be sleeping and decided to rag doll the netted cover to “wake them up”- a bit harsh!

Our next stop on our taxi service would be the zip line experience. Becky was nervous at first as it wasn’t exactly the best safety equipment. Basically a blanket was put across the front of your body then clipped in down your back. They even clipped in our flip flops so we didn’t lose them…nice touch… Asked then to move into a press up position to be lifted off the ground. This is when Becky became very nervous saying repeatedly “I don’t think I can do this” TOO LATE we were off. I ended up out in front and as Becky put it heavier lumps go faster. I put it down to my streamline figure or I was let go first 😂 the views were awesome as we were over all the trees and it opened up onto the river. Our ticket allowed us to zip line back the way too which was good this time I took the camera to try catch a picture of Becky. Unfortunately I was let go first again and despite my best efforts I couldn’t get one.

Our chauffeur then decided it was lunch time as we were dropped off at the floating restaurant. A conveyor belt of tourist. Grab a ticket when your number is called step forward and board the boat. It was too expensive and mass touristy for us so we attempted to find the driver to take us to a cafe or somewhere to get a sandwich he was nowhere to be seen. Our only option then was to have pot noodle style lunch or crisps. The hot and spicy noodles it was. Not that bad actually considering it was yet another noodle dish. Our driver finally arrived and we left.

There was a brief stop off at the man made Forest for a picture. He couldn’t answer why they planted a Forest there in the first place. Quick picture then we were on the road again heading to the Tarsier sanctuary.

Tarsiers are nocturnal animals and they pretty much look like gremlins or Yoda (queue Yoda quotes in my head).

Our final stop off on this trip would be the python and wildlife centre. Oh how we were wrong. Once we paid the entrance fee we had a short walk to the start of the park, we were surrounded by tiny rusty metal cages of primates, wild cats, and reptiles, most with no water, the monkeys sat on a cold concrete floor staring at the corner. Becky was horrified and looked for the nearest exit. We turned a corner to find a ladyboy singing at us and making a real show of all the depressed snakes around, trying to get us in their cages and holding them. He was given some sharp words from Becky,voicing the cruelty seen. Every member of staff on the way out were screaming at us to hold all these poor animals and take photos. Becky slammed the tickets back into the entrance booth and the driver was told we would be leaving immediately, she was absolutely devastated that we had paid into the institution. I assume the driver clocked the sensitive situation unfolding by our visit of less than 5 minutes and nervously offered me a peanut on the way back to the car!

On the way back to the hotel we asked to stop at a bank or ATM. We were taken to a shopping mall which might have been the highlight of the trip as the first shop I see was a cake shop. Time for Becky’s birthday cake! The cakes in the window were whole cakes only. I did consider it but after asking we managed to get smaller ones. I could not have been happier to get some actual chocolate. As we arrived back at the hostel and hour and a half early the driver had a chat with the manager before leaving.

Becky was straight on the iPad to write a review on the “wildlife centre”. All other reviews were along the same lines. I decided to look into Borneo and also for a hotel on the Thai islands.

Later that night we had dinner at the hostel again as there was nowhere else to go. I decided the veg curry again and Becky opted for the fish and chips. Bad decision on both parts, the veg was rock solid and Becky’s fish was soggy. The only positive would be Becky’s chips. I immediately ordered a side of chips and left the curry.

Few games of pool to complete the night before heading to bed to sort out tomorrow’s adventure of getting to the diving centre and how to celebrate my birthday!(sitting on a ferry and bus all day woohoo!)

Happy birthday Becky!

Thanks to our travels yesterday it was so nice to be woken up around 6am with dogs next door Barking and going mental. Something must have set them off.

The plan for today was set. Breakfast, find a way to the beach and then back for our firefly tour this afternoon….simple we thought. How wrong as per usual.

For the birthday girl her breakfast l…pancakes with syrup. She smothered the pancakes in syrup only to realise it was CINAMMON flavour (her worst nightmare) I began to laugh! Becky using the “it’s my birthday excuse I agreed to swap my pancakes as I hadn’t put an syrup on them. Cinnamon syrup wasn’t that bad actually.

With breakfast done it was time to find a way to the beach. Any beach by this point would do. We were recommended to go to Dumaluan as it was much quieter and closer than the famous Alona beach. DEAL! Only issue we had to rent another scooter to get there as it would work out cheaper than getting a tricycle.

As we set off on our scooter looking like dumb and dumber all over again the roads weren’t that bad the issues we had were Becky clawing at my side squeezing hard everytime a car came near and the fact they didn’t beep as they were passing so it was an unexpected surprise when massive trucks drove past. (the wing mirrors wouldn’t stay up kept pointing towards the ground….very useful)

As I was designated driver and Becky being navigator we were doing well, no arguments or tantrums. We followed the sat nav but it unfortunately took us down the road too early for the beach we were looking for and we ended up lost, lucky a local guy pointed us in the right direction and we were off again!

Found the beach….YES! FINALLY!

Clear blue water, soft white sand and massive dark cloud coming across…you are having a laugh. Anyway we found a spot dumped the towels and I ended up have to go back to move the scooter as we didn’t think it was safe where we left it. Seeing as I didn’t have a present for Becky (just yet anyway) I decided to try but her a cocktail…..slight language barrier there (typical) I was being sold bottles of rum with a can of coke….she understood 2 beers so I settled for that.

That massive cloud finally hit us and we had a rain shower for 10mins or so but after that blue sky once again! We were cautious as we had to be back for the tour plus grab some lunch and also find a ATM as we were skint again.

Heading back to the scooter we decided to eat lunch where we parked…vegetarian options…cheese and egg toastie or cheese toastie…one of each please! Becky grab a couple of crisps bags which were family sized bags but hey it’s her birthday.

Now the challenge begins of finding an ATM machine (hopefully one that wouldn’t clone our card) we headed towards Alona beach as it was the nearest place. Google maps is tremendous! As we pulled up to the bank Becky got off to lift cash and I avoided being hit with traffic. You’d think being on the side of the road pretty much on the pavement you would be safe but nope! My plan was to find a cake for Becky’s birthday but I completely forgot (wouldn’t be the end of that either).

A somewhat safe trip back to the hostel it was time to pack for the tour. The tour involved kayaking up the river to see the firefly’s on the trees then return for dinner with the group.

We were earlier on the water so took our time to get up towards the firefly’s ….. Totally worth it. It was pitch black by the time we got there not only were the firefly’s unbelievable but the sky was too. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Camera wouldn’t work on the firefly’s or the sky. Not impressed. 2 rules were no flash on the camera and stay quiet next to the trees as it would disturb the fly’s. In our group were 4 french people who decided to ignore the quiet rule…Becky’s faced said it all. (I’ve seen that face many times!😂) We’ve had our fair interactions with other nationalities that’s for sure. Becky whispers “bloody french” 🤣🤣

On the river though there was also boat tours coming up and down….as we had no lights whatsoever things became very interesting. We had to stay towards the side next to the mangroves and the boats would use the middle of the river. Our guides would call them the crocodile of the river. They would shine a flashlight every now and then to check if there was any kayaks around not like they would have any time to stop they were going that fast!

As we got back to the tourist shop our tea was ready….veg curry….get in! Haven’t had enough of that. We also had rice cooked in coconut leaves, some type of soup and an omelette to share.

Before we left I was remembered once again it was Becky’s birthday and she hadn’t got a present. The shop was selling kayak keyrings. No other option available so a pink kayak keyring it had to be.

Back at the hostel we had a few strong cocktails to celebrate the big day of Becky turning 29!

One cocktail too many as usual we headed to bed with Becky stuffing her face with another family sized bag of crisps.

We left cat ba at 1215 this afternoon on the bus. After check out we went for a quick smoothie at the little cafe we have had our last 2 meals in before the bus.

Nothing from report with the bus,quite smooth and passed quickly.

We arrived in Hanoi and let’s say we were glad we weren’t staying any longer than a couple of hours, much like most cities we have experienced so far hectic, dirty, but the roads here were particularly dangerous, literally not caring if they ran you over.

After spotting a vegan cafe on google maps with a decent rating we followed the map to it.menu looked great but food in general was about disappointing, I had to send my lasagna back because it was stone cold. All in all a very expensive prove for a very average meal. We started to regret ignoring the Domino’s pizza place we passed.

We went to the airport really early, it took us a little while to workout where to get the bus because we had to be on the other side of the highway but with no way of crossing safely. After popping into a hostel we were told the bus stopped directly outside and then joined the highway-perfect.

At the airport we sat and read because it was too early to check in. I started section one of the diving reading because I have booked on to the diving afterall, although it’s still sitting uneasy with me.

Checking in was a bit of a night mare, huge queues with other nationalities not used to queuing and attempting to walk straight up to the desk despite the half mile queue waiting…. We were getting very frustrated. Security and passport control was exactly the same!!

By the time we got through it was almost midnight and after our underwhelming meal we were getting peckish. With little choices food we just got a cold drink and a baguette…. £15 later…. For an unbelievably cheap country the airport was extortionate. In duty free I spotted Some haribo that David had been craving so I went to buy them, although David had the boarding passes so they wouldn’t let me. I went back to get the passes but David wouldn’t let me get them for him on principle because it was £3 for haribo.

The flight was delayed by almost an hour. David must have been shattered because he slept on the plane which he never does. I was far too cold with the harsh Aircon to sleep.

The delay had caused us a problem because we had a connecting flight to catch but with no luggage transfer we had to pass through security, get our bags and check in all over again. The queue for security was huge and we had less than an hour until our next flight, for once in our lives David started panicking and I was quite chilled about it all. We managed to get fast tracked through security and David sprinted to collect the bags, but mine took a lifetime, by the time it came through we had 30minutes before the next flight left.

We RAN through the airport with our 12kg of luggage on our backs,(I thought my chest was going to collapse) to the check in desk where it said check in had closed, luckily they allowed us to check our bags , ran through security, a little bit lighter this time, and to the gate, where it had only just started boarding…. Typical but we made it.

The next was only an hour’s flight and I managed to sleep on this.

When we arrived at Cebu everyone was trying to sell us taxis at double the price we knew it should cost so we jumped on the public bus and got as close as we could to pier 1 for the ferry to bohol.once we got off the bus it was 2.6km to the pier, we had the choic of a second bus or walk, of course we walked. That distance is a lot further than you think with luggage in tow. SWEAT FEST but hey we have finally found some sun!!!

The next ferry was 1.15pm so we got a drink in the closest place…. A Macdonald’s of all places…. It served mc rice, and MC spaghetti over here.

Wow the ferry terminal was just chaos, like the airport there were security xray for the luggage but people were transporting live animals like dogs and chickens and all of those went on the belt to be scanned too.

Boat was better than expected, designated seats plenty of room, but they did say a prayer for a safe arrival before we set off which was a bit worrying. I had a cosy window sill next to me and by that point in the day it was fair game as a pillow and I slept the full 2hours.

Our final mode of transport on Bohol was a ‘tricycle’ basically a side car on a motorbike and it was not made for 2 Westerners, David sat forward and I sat back and even then we just about managed. Christianity is huge here, they have Bible quotes painted onto all their tricycles.

28hours later finally arrived at the hotel, not too bad, separate bungalows which are simple but will do the trick, also a pool and jacuzzi in this one!! Only problem is the bathroom has open vents which is definitely going to allow wildlife in as we are in the greenery out here!!

Let’s just say this morning was rough. Last night antics have taken there toll, one too many Vodka/Rum and cokes.

Didn’t have the best of starts either I set my alarm to wake up for breakfast and thought I’d set it for 8am and it was actually 9am (when breakfast finishes)…..so we missed out.

After attempting to lift the heads of the pillows several times we decided we MUST find a bank today to get money out as we spent every penny we had left drinking last night. The ATM machines in cat ba are empty so we headed to the bank with our passports.

The bank allowed us to withdraw money (woohoo!) Though she did look suspicious when we both signed the form as Becky’s signature is on the back of my bank card. As we missed breakfast the next stop was to find somewhere to enjoy a tasty meal with didn’t have rice or noodles in it.

After walking along the sea front we found a nice cafe which had a decent menu. Becky went for the tomato soup with a baguette plus a fruit salad (claiming she wasn’t that hungry!) Id gone for the pancakes with banana smothered in caramel sauce…… unbelievable.

Our next challenge was to start planning the Philippines as we fly out there tomorrow night and also start looking towards Borneo. I became distracted by looking at 5 star hotels in Koh Tao looking for the most luxurious one!

Heading back towards the hotel we managed to book our bus for tomorrow to take us from Cat Ba to Hanoi…..a cosy 300,000 dong each. Lucky the bank was open or I would have been washing the dishes tonight! As we walked past another travel company they were advertising a yoga session tonight. Becky enquired as she’s wanted to do one out here for the experience. Turns out it was in a studio up the stairs from an Australian (not very Vietnamese) we decided against it as it was quite expensive.

Our next stop of the day was to the viewing point at the top of the mountain for the sun set. Lucky for us it was a smooth road surface only downside was we were still wearing our flip flops.

Once we arrived at the top it was probably a good 20mins walk up it was definitely worth it for the views. You could see round the whole island and across to monkey Island which we visited yesterday. As we sat down for an ice cream and Fanta (avoiding alcohol at all costs today) we were swarmed by Chinese tourist. Trying to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet with amazing views destroyed by some mutant people taking photos and shouting to each other.

As we reached the view point for the sunset it was quiet so we managed to bag a seat. Realising it was the back of 4 it would be at least another hour before the sun started to set I decided to do some of my homework for the scuba diving course in the Philippines.

The view point started to fill up which was good created a bit of atmosphere and the view was incredible the only negative would be the choice of music from the small snack bar……Westlife! don’t know what it is about over here and cheesy boy bands but they love them. Becky was in her element.

The walk down took only 10mins as Becky was desperate to get back as she was cold and now we’re heading back to that small cafe to enjoy another delicious meal that doesn’t contain tofu, rice or noodles 😁.

Early start this morning as the trip started at 730am, breakfast in this hotel is really good actually, although very similar options David was glad to see cornflakes on the menu, the closest he is going to get to branflakes!

The tour guide, Thank, was great, his knowledge and his English was perfect. The group of about 20 were mainly German, we couldn’t really interact with anyone for most of the tour because all the Germans got together and spoke in German, there was an older Korean couple but only the man spoke English so again it was difficult.

The first attraction was the floating fishing villages nestled amongst the hills in the shelter from the main ocean, the guys on these makeshift villages stay here throughout their whole lives, they have small nets hung on barrels and wood where they put all their catch to grow, this means that in the low season they can sell their stock. Each property also has a dog which initially seemed strange because their is nowhere for them to run but hey keep them to guard the fish from the kites. Apparently early in the morning all the dogs go swimming in the sea together for exercise.

The next stop was the fish farm and kayaking, all the kayaks were 2 man. I was at the front with the camera, David at the back. Some people really couldn’t kayak and kept zigzagging and crashing into people so we just hung back at the back to avoid the crashing. It got quite warm as we kayaked, I ended up taking my coat off and trying to suspend is wrapped up between. My knees off the bottom of the coat, it didn’t really work and it got soaked.

We went through a few caves and tried to spot some of the langur monkey, we didn’t see any however it’s not really surprising because they are critically endangered with only 61 left in the wild!

After kayaking we visited the fish farm at the kayak dock, I wasn’t keen to do this, some of the fish here weigh up to 80kg and are kept in 4m deep nets suspended from the Surface for tourism only, you couldn’t even see most of them so the whole thing was useless in my eyes.

Next stop was a secluded part of Halong Bay for swimming and lunch, not ,any people went in because it was still cold, David dived from the top of the deck once but didn’t go in after that, I think the temperature was a bit of a shock.

Lunch was good actually, there were lots of options, usual rice and veg again and they cooked black snapper for people, we stuck to the vegetarian options. The guy sat next to us had brought a lunch box with him and as the staff cleared up he went round all the table and took the leftovers for his meal later on. It was a bit embarrassing the extent he went of going round all the tables, rearranging the box to fit more in, but it’s also very savvy way to travel, and reduced waste I guess.

The morning of the trip was very cloudy, and bitterly cold when on the boat, but in the afternoon it was really sunny and warm- finally!!!

Next stop in the afternoon was monkey island, we had to get a water taxi from the boat to the beach, the sands were golden and the sun strong- this is what we’ve been waiting for!!! When we got to the beach there were lots of monkeys,generally stealing everything they could from tourists not paying attention, we saw a 2L water bottle go, someone’s rucksack, and a can of beer which the monkey ran down the beach with before downing the can- pretty funny! Some tourists in the cafe were sat feeding them, pretty stupid really because the monkeys were getting more and more persistent with them, and that’s why they are as naughty as they are!! The rangers eventually went over to tell them to stop.

There was a viewpoint on the island, a 20minute trek up the rock face, I didn’t think it was going to be as hard as it was, but it was actually quite difficult. Here were makeshift planks to cross and huge boulders to clamber across I got almost to the top but turned back just before because I didn’t feel safe, David went up a little higher. I sat on the beach enjoying the views until he got back down.

After this stop we went back to the harbour and got a bus back to cat ba town.

That evening we went out for a couple of drinks, we ate at Mona’s restaurant where they had live music playing, food was ok, but they forgot David’s meal so we ate separately. Instead of drinking beer we went onto the spirits for a change. After listening to the guitarist and playing cards we went for one more drink at the oasis bar before bed, well we intended to have one more drink but instead we spent every penny we had on us on vodka and rum, David went up to the bar and said to the barman we have 50dong left, what can we have? The barman said it’s fine have the same again. We got talking to a girl and her family from Leeds, she was teaching English over here and they were just visiting.

We ended up buying 2more rounds of drinks on the card with not a single penny of cash left because the only ATM in the town had been out of service all day. The measures here are 60ml as a single shot so we were pretty drunk, I ended up dancing on the tables with the girl from Leeds to spice girls- (standard!)and David was doing his usual one-two step.

It wasn’t late when we got back in, probably 1am, on the way back up the hill to our hotel David wanted to go into the rose club, a new nightclub, we walked in and there was no-one so we left, and probably a very good job we did!

This morning we got a taxi to the bus pick up point. Journey was fine, comfortable, nothing much to report really.. Initial thoughts on cat ba island wasn’t much, a little bit blackpool-esque, all the hotels that we dropped people before ours were pretty shabby which made us worry, but ours looked decent in comparison. Got dropped off at the hotel. We went out to grab some food, seems to have quite a buzz for such a small place, its quickly grown on us!

Booked a boat trip for tomorrow for ha la bay and Halong Bay.

Quite a quiet afternoon, played some pool in the bungalow hostel, although there were 4balls missing. Again mainly seafood restaurants all with huge fish in tiny tanks, some floating seafood restaurants.

In the evening we went back to a bar called the bigman, we ate here at lunch but it seems to be the most popular. Played some cards, and got some nachos, Were both totally bored of the vegetarian food options here now, and everything is deep fried. If I see another deep fried spring roll I will go mad! This was my first craving for a good chicken burger or something, whereas David is desperate for some chocolate, he ordered the chocolate cake but they didn’t have any 😂. It was happy hour on cocktails, again a welcome change to local beer which is actually cheaper than water.

On our way out of the bar we bumped into Ruth and Ben, a couple who did the Phong Nha trek with us, Ben waved us over so we decided to join them for a couple more beers, next to them was a Korean couple who kept pouring bottled water into their pints, well at least that’s what it looked like but actually it was home brewed rice wine and it smelt dangerous! They were all drinking it in their beers but we both had our sensible heads on with the boat trip the next day!

If anyone is wondering when David’s input is going to happen, Im afraid it looks like you stuck with me because he just will not write a day up!We got up at 650am after being told our pick up was at 730, breakfast again was unbelievable, cooked banana wrapped in pancakes and coffee. We ate it a little too fast because time was quite fine. After breakfast the hostel owner said they would be here to pick us up between 830-9. Something got lost somewhere in informing us!!!

The lady in the tourist shop told us we could wear pretty much anything for this tour because they would give us suitable shoes so we went with shorts and flip flops with the mind the less clothes the less there are to get wet. The bus arrived and told us we needed long pants and proper shoes…. we weren’t having a good start but we just went with it and ran upstairs to grab some pants.

We first arrived at paradise cave, buggy’s took us to the foot of the mountain and then we were to head 600m up the slope to the cave entrance. The path was super slippy from all the rain.

We got an introduction to the cave, a poor hunter stumbled across it in 2005 after hunting in the heat and feeling the cool air coming from a small entrance he went in, he is now really rich following the discovery, he still lives locally. The cave entrance is really small and they have even widened it since, but inside was just spectacular, it was hard to appreciate the extent of the history and nature before us. The cave is 34km in total, we only went in 1km, you are able to go up to seven km on a different tour but there is no lighting or pathway. It was quite difficult to get photos in there with the lighting.

After paradise cave we moved by bus to the 8 ladies cave, we needed the long pants for this cave as there is a temple here. 8 people got trapped in this very small cave following a bomb explosion in the war. We finally found out about the temples and that local people believe that death means you go to live in another parallel world and this is why they leave fresh food at the temples daily, it’s frowned upon to put you back to the shrine. There were millions of bombs dropped during the Vietnamese war by the Americans and 10% of these have not been found and remain unexploded, it’s illegal to walk around the national park on your own because of the risks. If they find bombs they use the dynamite within them to mine in the area or even make fireworks! Bomb craters can be seen in the jungle.

From this cave we had to change our walking shoes into some Vietnamese sandals, which seemed ridiculous, red rubber jelly shoes in effect, to trek into the jungle??? They called these safety shoes????again we went with it and it soon became apparent. The mud was literally up to our ankles, tree roots, rocks, when your feet sank in the mud it pulled you shoes off, but you wouldn’t be wanting to do this in trainers! We saw some bomb craters as we walked and the guide, Tai, pointed out the poison ivy plant which is meant to be nasty and burn for around 1week if it touches you…… it looked like every other green plant around us!! After walking for 30-40 minutes we reached the river with a sand island in the middle where a bbq was going, wading across the river we got under the tarpaulin in the dry and sat on mats to eat. The food was good, we were to make our own spring rolls from the food lay out, it was great!! I had the delight of needing to use the ‘jungle toilet’ a tiny tent with a bucket, and a toilet lid only, about a foot from the bucket, just for effect!

After lunch we changed in the makeshift changing rooms, again a 3 sided tarpaulin cubicle. I also found a tiny leach on my leg but it hadn’t attached yet!!Next went the cold wet life jackets and the helmets. I’m sure I got a kids helmet because I looked ridiculous!

Actually getting to the Tranang cave entrance was a task in itself, I’m not sure how they advertise this trip as suitable for 6year olds!! The water definitely wasn’t crystal blue today, maybe because of the downpours. There was quite some current as the water flowed out of the cave to the river. The water was cold and deep, I was pretty nervous and David kept telling me to move over a little because I kept booting him as I swam but I didn’t want to go too far away because I wasn’t sure about rocks under the water. Turns out I didn’t have to worry about that because the water was over 50m deep. We swam about 0.25km into the cave before getting out to sit on the rocks. Once everyone was sat Tai told us to turn off our head torches. I’ve never experienced darkness like this, even holding your hand in front of your face you couldn’t see a thing. A lot of the fish in the cave don’t have eyes because it’s so dark. We sat for about 15minutes in the dark playing daft games. One of the games was people for, each country competing on making different animal noises and hearing them echo, everyone was pretty shy, but I got right into it, doing a mountain goat, a dog and a chicken. David was howling laughing at me! All of a sudden it went eerily quiet and I knew Tai was up to something,I really don’t do shocks in the dark or open water so I said, apparently in a really girly voice ‘can we turn the lights back on now??’ That set David off again!

When we put the lights back on we could see all the bats at arms length trying to catch mosquitoes, I was more bothered about catching rabies. It was a good time to leave.

Tai suggested we swam back following the current with no light on, since when was that a good idea?.. it wasn’t, so in true Vietnamese style it happened. It was so eerie, there was only one thing that distracted me from the darkness, a selfie that I took in the pitch black which I then couldn’t swim for laughing so hard. ,y helmet was tight and my life jacket strangling me, on top of being terrified, I looked like a fat kid trying to swim with no armbands. At least take 2 I managed a smile!!

After the caving we dried off and had a coffee before trekking back up the muddy jungle path back to the bus. We washed our feet off and got back on the bus with a well deserved beer each.

Breakfast- egg and baguette… Again. Bitter white coffee with invisible milk.

We went straight to tam coc, the touristy place, on our little moped thing, the road of our hostel is off the beaten track and I was convinced we were going to come off into the rice paddies surrounding. The satnav, aka me, took us down a highway which was pretty scary business with hgv’s flying past. David was laughing because we looked like dumb and dumber on the bike

As we approached there were tonnes of shops selling north face coats ‘the real thing’ for a tenner each we got one each…. Finally not freezing.

The boat tour was decent, meandering through the cliffs by paddle boat. The people here sit back and row boats using their feet… Really crazy stuff but makes a lot of sense. The lady kept just shouting bon bon baby at us after she clocked we were married!

At the turning point of the boat there were paddle boats selling drinks and food, they were right up in your face trying to get you to tip them in food and drink.

There were wild boar inland trying to steal food from the moored up boats, and also a lady sat on a boat singing karaoke with a microphone and her phone for lyrics…. Just randomly on her own. (The middle lady in the photo)

On the way back we saw mountain goats, how they get where they go and don’t die I’m not sure, but if they pick a more sensible terrain they will just get out on a BBQ on the side of the road.

At the end of the boat the lady was just persistent in getting 100,000d tip, even before we were near dry land she started and once off she followed us up the road grabbing our arms….. So frustrating!!!

There wasn’t much more to do here, but we found a pizza restaurant cooking fresh pizza in a clay oven Infront of you…. Sold!!!

Next we headed to the Mua cave viewpoint, we can’t say this was totally enjoyable, hundreds of steps again up to the top of the mountain. My disco knee’s came back out on the way up and David’s on the way back down. There were 3couples having wedding photos up there, how the got up here in those dresses, or how they can stand on the rock face is beyond me!!

There are no ATM’s in tam coc, the closest was 10km away in the city centre, our next stop….. Terrifying. The traffic lights count you down and we decided to set off with 5 seconds to go until green just so you don’t get left behind.

David loved the city centre drive, I was clinging on for dear life. Once we were out of town and on very quiet roads we pulled over for me to have a shot in the drivers seat!!! Straight on no problem … Stopping at lights, fine….. Turning a bend, no chance,I started zigzagging in towards the reservation, I couldn’t figure it out in a panic, it definitely wasn’t like stealing a bicycle. That was my turn over and back to satnav role where I belonged.

That night we didn’t feel like eating after a pizza lunch, we just had beer and a packet of crisps whilst playing pool. The owner of the hostel next us was also doing karaoke full blast on her own sat in a hammock,must be quite normal out here, no wonder she had no business!!!

Tomorrow we head to cat ba island by bus, our final vietnam stop.

We arrived at the hostel at 5am, it was a struggle to get in because the gates were padlocked but the minibus that dropped us kept beeping the horn until someone came. Luckily they showed us straight to our room and didn’t have to check in until the morning.

Straight in bed, we didn’t rise until almost 11am after the bus journey.

The only way to get round here is by scooter, or guided tour- a scooter it was then. The helmets we got were a bit of a joke, a bit like toy helmets but probably better than nothing. David was driver and I was the satnav on the back with Google maps screaming instructions. We decided to go to Bai Dinh, the biggest ancient pagoda in South East Asia. David did well driving, luckily the roads are very quiet and straight forward up North a bit.

Once we arrived and parked up we decided to walk to the site’s rather than pay for an electric buggy ticket. It wasn’t actually that far to walk to it but once we got there the amount of steps in the place was ridiculous. As usual I had loads of layers on and they were being taken off at each flight of stairs. Once we reached the top I needed to take my leggings from under my trousers but there were only men’s loos, so in I went regardless. Once through the rock face with all the Buddha statues and incense we presumed the multiple flights of stairs would take us on the right path, o how we were wrong, they led to a dedicated end and we had to start again walking all the way back up again.

In each section of the pagoda there were huge temples with multiple gold statues of Buddha,and hundreds of smart ones encased in glass over the walls.

Manymany more steps later we found our way back to the scooter and it was a 5km drive back to the hostel.

Once we got back we went to look at the surrounding hostels to heck out the menus for dinner later on, just nextdoor there are about 3 hostels backing onto a lagoon with limestone cliffs in all directions, pontoons and a small island housing cattle. It was so pretty and perfect for a beer!

In the evening we both sat on the balcony bit just outside our room, I read my book and ended up having a snooze- standard.favid looked into his diving and watched Netflix. It was a very comfy spot until all the mosquitoes came down, this meant it must be dinner time.

We ate at the hostel next door, it was the Vietnamese quarter final of the Asian cup and the group of guys working in the restaurant had set up a TV. At any opportunity they would scream and yell, so funny, at one point one guys was slamming a chair against the floor in frustration- they lost which was a shame because their celebration had they won would have been epic.

We were laughing because I clearly overspent on my tea tonight, mine came to almost a hefty £3 when David’s only came to 80pence, that’s me not eating for the next 3 days to make up for it 😂😂😂 this meal was the first meal that we are both fed up of eating veg with rice/noodles, almost 3 weeks of it every day is beginning to get boring!

We booked onto the abandoned valley jungle trekking which is a rock climb in a cave, a cave swim and 12.5km trek through jungle. We got picked up at 745am from the hotel in a ex Soviet war vehicle. There were 10 of us in total. The tour guide, Zara, had a crazy amount of enthusiasm and just laughed all the time. We headed to the jungle boss head quarters to sign our lives away with a disclaimer and change into the shoes that they provided for the trek in an attempt to save our shoes getting soaked and muddy again!

40minutes later we were dropped in the national park at the side of the road and off we went, up a very steep rocky incline.

Once again the mud was deep, we started off trying to avoid it but in the end it was just unavoidable and wet feet were inevitable. Zara was tiny, she did it in the jelly shoes and socks and I swear she was too light to sink in because she barely got muddy throughout the entire trek. She was also super speedy through the rocks, she used to go hunting with her dad as a teenager so it was second nature to her whereas us westerners were like a herd of elephants.

It was a VERY good job we didn’t wear our own boots. The long pants we bought the day before were also very necessary.

After walking for just over an hour’s, over trees crossing rivers, wading thigh deep in the rivers we reached the back entrance of the dark cave. The main entrance is very commercial used with kayak’s, zip lines and mudbaths. We went rock scrambling in the smaller entrance not easily accessible to the public.

This wasn’t for the faint hearted! With hats and gloves we scrambled across huge huge boulders which had fallen from the cave walls and roof. I was genuinely concerned that these could fall at my time but Zara didn’t seem concerned saying it only really happens in the wet season or after earthquakes. Once the rocks became wet it was really slippy and the cravases between the boulders were huge. We went 700m in and stood on the beach inside. We were told bout the spiders, scorpions, fish and shrimp that inhabit the cave, good job she didn’t say this before we went in! Sure enough on the way back I saw a Spider with long antennae because they don’t have any eyes, and a large shrimp in a pool. On the way back out the tour guide gave a route for the men on one bit and a route for the ladies. You would never get away with this back home, but sure enough one of the American ladies attempted the harder route, fell into the water and ripped the crotch out of her pants!

There were 3 local men who are employed to carry the luggage throughout the trek, each of their bags weighed 45kg including life jackets and helmets for everyone. I don’t know how they did it!!!

The next stop was the e cave which was an hour’s walk away following the river. This wasn’t easy either, the banks were sandy and collapsed as you walked on it. I got abrightly coloured caterpillar on my pants, I was reluctant to get it off incase it was poisonous but managed to find a safe leaf and get it off that way. Once we got to the base near e cave lunch was ready, it was just the same as the last trip, make your own spring rolls. The guide noticed the time,3pm it was very late and she wanted to go swimming quickly or else we would be trekking in the dark. This time I had a better fitting helmet so helmet head didn’t make a reappearance much to David’s disappointment. He took the camera with him anyway just in case!! And no surprises, when I’ve gone through the photos to write this, he couldn’t help himself but take a photo of his legs

This cave was much narrower, the water was 7m deep, in the rainy season it’s completely full with water. As we saw in we had to go under a very small opening within the cave, again I started to think about the Thai football team understanding how they got stuck- I couldn’t wait to get out of this one! The water was also freezing cold and I’m getting a cold for sure!!! I couldn’t stop sneezing and Zara offered me flu meds.

The walk back to the bus was about 90minutes in thick mud and up hill, it was really difficult and we had to pick up the pace to be out of the jungle before dark. I’ve been quite disappointed about the lack of wildlife we’ve seen but the path we walked is part of the ho chi Minh trail which is walked every day so the animals tend to avoid it. The only thing we saw as dusk serving were bats which flew so low they touched our heads.

The tour guide says that in the deeper jungle there are still a few leopards, sunbears and monkey. She’s seen leopard once from a distance. My life would be made if I could go home say I’ve seen leopard and orangutan in the wild!!!

We got back to the van just before dusk to an ice cold beer. It was well deserved and welcomed!! The journey back was slow in the old vehicle.

It was closing in on 7pm and people were being so slow and getting themselves sorted at headquarters before our drop off back to the hostel. We had a night bus to catch at 9pm and wanted to get showered, changed and head into town for a meal before we got on the bus. We were both getting a little impatient.

We managed to get back for 7pm and we rushed to the shower before the other people did on the trip. They were eating at the hostel so weren’t in such a rush. We made it into town for 730pm as we managed to get a lift from the hostel. We got sat down in bamboo cafe, the place we had eaten the day before. The food here is great and they are very eco conscious, filling your water up with safe water for a fraction of the cost of buying a new bottle to try and reduce plastic in the area.

We ordered almost everything on the menu except the penis banana we were so hungry!

The bus never turned up on time, it was an hour late, even then it came and then left again without letting people on, and then rocked up 15minutes later to let us on. Whilst waiting for the bus we got talking to 2 German sisters who were planning to stay at our next hostel too, we agreed we could all share a taxi at the other end.

The sleeper bus was an experience, it was 3 rows of ‘beds’ with two aisleways and top and bottom bunks, everyone had a blanket and a foot well where if you were shorter than 5foot5 you would be quite comfortable. In our case, once we had a backpacks next to our feet there wasn’t much room for moving. We both got as settled as we could, on the top bunks one behind eachother, when we realised we had pitched up next to the group of rowdy teenage travellers that had shared our boat the previous day. They were all drinking beer, screaming and swearing ….great start to the 7hours. Plus they recognised us! To be fair once the lights went off they weren’t so bad. I slept really well for being on a bus, David didn’t at all. When we got off he told me the driver stopped to get out twice, David had got out to go to the loo twice, the first time changing his mind because it was filthy and the second time out of desperation. He had also accidentally flung his leather pillow/head rest from his bed, hitting the guy in the top bunk of the central beds, and then both guys underneath him. Instead of sleeping he watched 4episodes on Netflix. I didn’t realise how well I had slept until he told me all of this that I’d slept through. The only thing that bothered me was the heat and the stuffiness of the bus despite air-conditioning, and the fact that I was sleeping cuddling a loo roll because of my streaming cold.

The bus driver must have put his foot down, we got picked up over an hour late and we arrived 40minutes early. Half way through I had decided to put my seatbelt on in my bed because I kept waking up to my feet being squashed into the footwell with his harsh breaking and the sound of the horn( whenever they overtake anyone here they beep the horn first to let them know).

Well I’ve been moaned at enough so it’s my turn to do the blog…… woohoo!!

Chill out morning after yesterday’s epic adventure. The plan for today was to take it easy in the morning and head to the Phong Nha cave around lunch time.

As we finished breakfast – tremendous banana pancakes! We were just about to hire a scooter for the day when 2 guys were being treated for what looked like war wounds! They literally had just fell off the scooter outside the hostel. Since I would be the one doing the driving I made a quick U turn on the scooter so we settled for bicycles. Taking no chances out here.

As we arrived into town we were on the lookout for some long pants for the trekking here and in Borneo as elephant pants just weren’t cutting it. Also Becky was on the hunt for a jacket as she was “freezing”…….it’s actually quite cold, around 15 degrees.

As we stumbled across a small shop the woman was having none of my haggling skills as she wouldn’t budge from less than a million dong for three items of clothing! So we left. Lucky though as the only jacket they had in Becky’s size was bright yellow 😂

We waited for an American couple to join us on the tour ( you had to pay for the full boat so the more people the less it would cost) as it turned out when ended up with 12 on our boat. Don’t know what happened I went to the toilet and all of a sudden the boat is full. For some reason they insisted that everyone on the boat wore a life jacket, their health and safety is lax compared to home; they don’t seem to cater for kids, or credit how you wear it, as long as it’s on your body 😂

The Phong Nha cave is the oldest cave there and it was a good 20min boat journey away lucky the views were outstanding and we didn’t have to make small talk 😂

Inside the cave was unreal. So many different shapes formed by the limestone and the colours created from the minerals in the water……yes I did pay attention to the tour guide the day before! The boat took us inside for around 1km with the man at the front ROWING the boat through the cave. Take my hat off to him it looked like very hard work. As we headed back the boat stopped to let us off to walk around for a bit. Got a chance to get closer to the action. Fantastic. The pictures just don’t do it justice.

We decided once we got back to the ticket office to head back to the shop and just pay whatever the woman wanted as we needed the long pants.

After this was lunch in a very nice place called bamboo cafe. I decided on the usual tofu curry. Keeping it simple as usual! Becky had eggplant in lemongrass and garlic-also amazing!

Now for the best bit. I fancied a desert and on the menu there was an item which I had to get…..Penis Banana…..Becky thought it was a typo turns out it wasn’t. Classic. The waiter had a cheeky smile on his face when I ordered.

The cycle back to the hostel was rather quick as the rain was heading in and Becky needed to warm up asap!

The plan was to organise and sort out the next part of the journey. Ninh Binh and Catba Island. Becky fell asleep……typical!

After dinner a group of us decided to play some riddle games….great just what I need. First was the Spoon game. Haven’t a clue what was happening during the game apparently all you had to say was OK before you said the sentence. I lost patience very quickly, Becky was enjoying it though. Then came the actual riddles…..when is 99 greater than 100…..I couldn’t care by this point…..the answer….on a microwave as when you type 100 it’s only a minute so therefore 60 seconds…I won’t repeat on here what I said at that point.

Off to bed for a very exciting trip tomorrow…..the abandoned valley tour!

Last night we found a great little cafe in Hue from trip advisors finest recommendations, and now that we have worked out how to download maps from Google maps offline it’s making life much easier! The meal was great, really chilled and lots of fab food. The local beer is actually really nice and costs 30pence a bottle!!!

We headed back to the hostel stopping for one last drink on the way back, we found a brief with live guitarists who were out of this world! They had put a makeshift stage on the pavement corner, they seem to use the pavements for nothing but walking on!

Back at the hostel the smell of damp hit us again from our room.When we opened the door, there was intermittent water pouring from the bathroom ceiling and given the smell it had been going on for some time! We asked reception if we could move rooms but it was lost in translation. We showed the receptionist the problem who informed us there were no free rooms. We resigned to dealing with it for the short stop over.

10 minutes later, as David stepped into the shower there was a knock on the door. As David panicked, I opened the door and we were told we could move to the managers room for the night as he wasn’t staying. Never did I think we would complain about a room that cost us £8 , but it did the trick!

Our pick up was on time for the transfer to Phong Nha, roughly 4 hours, the bus w basic and pretty cramped. We made one stop, at some place that Mary had supposedly been seen. It was quite strange, they had religious music blasting from speakers on top of the buildings and marble Mary statues everywhere. We got a fried egg baguette and got back on the bus.

Phong Nha is just one long Street with hundreds of hostels and tour booking places. It’s set in the middle of the jungle with huge limestone sheer cliffs around. Once again when we arrived it was peeing it down, we jumped into the closest bar for some cover to sort out our stuff. David nipped nextdoor to find some directions, he was gone ages! He managed to get a map downloaded and we weren’t far from the hostel so we just walked rather than call for a lift.

Again nice hostel, good hosts, clean spacious room. The receptionist who I think is also the daughter sat and spoke to us about the tours available and advised we did the Phong Nha cave today as it was very local and we only had a half day.

After a quick power nap from me, we took the bikes and tried to find where we were to get the boat to Phong Nha cave. We cycled a bit too far on the one road and had to turn back and ask for directions. We found the place and paid to park our bicycles. At the ticket office we were told no point in going on because you had to pay per boat for up to 12 people and there was no one else, we opted to come back at a busier time to try again in the next few days. Instead we walked along the main Street and had a smoothie before cycling back.

Again it’s very wet here and all of our things feel quite damp, I’m finding it difficult to warm up because as soon as you step outside your soggy and nothing dries with the humidity in the air. I went for a shower and the first minute or two were so warm but that was it…. A cold shower after that. Really regretted washing my hair there is no hairdryer here, it’s the first thing I look for each time we go to a new room. I was laying in bed after my cold shower trying to warm up and suddenly this massive dragonfly like insect flew from the bathroom into the room, it was huge and you could see the sting on its tail, it was hilarious trying to get it out of the room with just a towel and trying not to aggravate nor kill it, we must have been wafting it towards the door for around 20minutes and even when we got it out of the door it just sat on the floor outside the room. I was convinced it was going to be there when we left but it wasn’t. I guess we are in the jungle!!!

We ate dinner at the hostel and it was great! An absolute feast! We ate with a group from italy and Norway, they were planning to head to easytiger the party hostel afterwards but didn’t go in the end. We sat and had a few beers and played cards. There was a lot of cheering and fireworks as we were playing and it turned out the Asin cup was on and they really like their football. The game went through extra time to penalties so we sat with the family to watch the penalities, when Vietnam won the street went crazy including fireworks, the dogs howling along to the celebrations too. That was the celebration with them only through to the quarter finals!!!

We are going on the national park trip with a 730am pick up tomorrow so we went to bed and watched a film….. 10minutes in I was fast asleep as usual!

At breakfast this morning we got a fruit salad alongside the normal options, I finally got to try dragon fruit, this was white but it also comes in a deep pink colour… It tasted of nothing! We were picked up at 10am this morning to take a 6 hour motorbike tour from Hoi An to Hue on the Hai Van pass. We had a few options to get to Hue, the bus goes through the tunnel so that wasn’t an option as we wanted to see the views. We could have hired a bike and David to drive… That also wasn’t a safe option. So we decided to go with the easy riders. Another girl from the hostel called Katy was heading to Hue also.

The first stop we didn’t really know where we were or why we had stopped. One of the riders took us to the main entrance and told us the entry fee. It only became apparent we were at the marble mountains once we had actually started to look around. It’s 5 peaks of marble and sandstone with Buddhist pagodas and cave systems.

The caves looked nothing from the outside but once you went in they were spectacular, the beams of light coming through holes were impressive, one was huge and had shrines and also marble statues carved in the rock itself inside.

After this stop it was about half an hour on the highway to the hai van pass. There were some hairy moments in the roads, if you get stuck behind a bus then the only way to know it’s slowing down is to watch for the conductor sticking their hand out of the door. It’s actually easier to be on the bikes than to try and cross a road though!

As we approached the pass the views were awesome, green mountains and clouds creeping through the valleys

As we wen up into the clouds the temperature drop was so sudden! We took plenty of stops for photos, they particularly liked to stop at the big bends in the road. Stupidly we decided no suncream was the best option given the clouds at the hostel and sitting on bikes all day, at the first stop we had to uncover and offload our

bag to get some before we actually shrivelled up and burned!

David’s rider was a bit crazy but a good laugh, that’s him photo bombing us!

Final few photos from the bikes:

We stopped for lunch at a seafood restaurant, where there was very little other choice except fries, which had definitely been fried in butter, and got served with butter!!

Before reaching Hue we stopped off at a fishing village lagoon where the fishermen go out all night on their longboats using lights to attract fish. Apparently they also live on these boats although I still find this very hard to believe!

From here we saw the rice paddies being prepared, acres and acres prepared by hand for very little money, getting 3 harvests a year!

On arrival in Hue the riders dropped us at the door of our hostel which was decent of them, it saved us a 30minute walk.

The hostel is average, seems clean but a little noisy. We went for cheap and cheerful at £8 a night for ensuite private room as we leave here for Phong Nha at 630am in the morning.

Today we didn’t have any major plans, it rained all night again but it stopped this morning which meant we could actually get to sleep. At breakfast Hien had made us a mango salad, which involved shredded mango, carrot, raw garlic (!!) And herbs. It tasted beautiful but man I must have stank of garlic afterwards. David didn’t eat his.

We headed down to the tailors to try on the new clothes and they were really very good!! They fit very well, David didn’t need any alterations whereas my dress just needed taking in slightly. The alterations would be done in an hour so we headed back to the old town for a drink. Whilst we sat there I was trying to decide whether to get a jumpsuit made or not, after very little persuasion I decided to go for it.

The dress fit perfectly the second time and I got.measured up for a long jumpsuit. My worry regarding the time was unnecessary, despite it being 1pm and us leaving at 10am the next day they said the suit would be ready by 5pm!!!

By the time we got back to the hostel it had cheered up a lot!!! T-shirt weather finally!! We took the bikes and cycled through the countryside to the beach. It was an alright beach but really nothing special. The worst bit was all of the seafood restaurants along the front with tanks of live animals, with just enough water to cover them. Would have been kinder to sit and eat them all to put them out of their misery.

We walked down the road a little bit and grabbed a beer before cycling back to the hostel. We sat and planned some more stops; deciding to stop at Nimh Binh rather than Sapa.

Back to the tailors we went again and again the finished product was perfect- I was starting to like the way this kind of shopping worked!!! Lucky for David there was no time to order any more!

We played cards with a few of the other hostel guests before getting ready to head out for some food.

We found a very busy Indian restaurant and the change from noodles was welcome!!!

The old town was the most picturesque town we have ever seen and the atmosphere was great, even better without the rain. We sat outside a bar watching visitors and vendors go about their business, there was even Vietnamese bingo going on in the square next to us!

We bought a candle lantern from a young vendor to out in the river, getting into the mood of the place.

Attempting to take a photo of us and the lantern in the water was a DISASTER! We had David’s phone and a selfie stick, I broke something which resulted in a 5second delay in taking a photo and the screen going white for this time so all we ended up with was tonnes of mugshots!!!

Tomorrow we leave Hoi an, we’ve arranged easyrider motorbike drivers to take us through the hai van pass mountain road to Hue.

It rained and rained and rained alllll night, I was convinced the place was going to flood! Breakfast this morning was pancakes smothered in fresh passion fruit which, David picked every single passion fruit pip out. He also ordered the wrong drink and ended up with pure hot lemon juice which he drank but with a struggle. After last nights drama we headed to the bank to lift money and make sure the one remaining card we had left still worked. SUCCESS we have cash (for now). Next stop, the tailors to see what they have to offer.

After walking in the rain we thought we had found the tailors which was recommended to us by our hostel. Apparently not as we found out a good 10 minutes later with Becky already picking out colours and material. They sneakily had a very similar name to the one which was told to us but didn’t offer the same service, we only found out when an Irish couple in the same shop told us of their same mistake, we left immediately. After finding the correct one a short 5 minutes walk away we headed on in. David was given a catalogue to look through while I showed them the dresses which I would like. Their response was “I can make that today”. Finding out the price was what we actually needed to know……..$125! We couldn’t spend that sort of money on having a dress made just because tailors are cheap here. Definitely if you needed a suit or a dress for a black tie event and you knew exactly what you were after or if we didn’t have to carry it in my backpack for the next 6 weeks it would be worth it! So We left.

As we headed towards the market when I spotted a lovely dress in a random tailors made of dark material with small flamingoes on. It’s a more smart casual summer dress. We went in to enquire, the different materials would determine the cost of the dress after trying to haggle they could make it to measure in the flamingo material for 70 US dollars, they wouldnt budge any lower. We left this shop again but I kept thinking about it, so we went back and I tried on the one in the entrance to get a better idea, I liked it and the material is so unusual that I decided to take the risk and I got measured up. Whilst I was doing this David decided to have a shirt made in the same shop. For the two items it is £74, whether the quality is there also we will have to wait and see! We go back for alterations tomorrow morning.

We booked onto a cooking course this afternoon, picked up at 120pm from the hostel and taken to the food market in groups to buy the ingredients. We all got given an extra poncho despite already wearing a waterproof because the rain was so heavy. We all had woven shopping baskets, the chef talked us through all the ingredients and let us smell all the different flavours.

We then got on a boat to go to the cooking school. This involved going in a bucket boat whilst wearing a traditional Vietnamese hat, the lady in the boat made us grasshoppers out of palm leaves. Some of the boat owners were spinning people so fast in the bucket boats that it seemed as though they were going to go in.

Just before hopping out we were handed a basic stick with fishing line on with a hook and fish head, to catch crabs in the reeds, David got really into this and although there was a crab on the end of the line he couldn’t get it out of the water. I was thankful that the creature wasn’t co-operating because it was bringing back childhood memories of summers spent crab fishing at Conwy when they all used to chase me instead of going back to the sea!!!

It was still raining and we were both soaked through! We then went into the cooking class where they showed us how rice is removed from the shell and ground into rice meal. We had to wear the apron and the cooks hat and we worked out way through cooking 4 courses, spring roll, crispy pancakes, noodle soup, mushroom and tofu noodles- we did the vegetarian options of course. After each course was cooked we could eat it straight away. For the dipping sauce on the spring rolls it had to be sticky, the lady assistant came across quite aggressive but I think it was just her accent, she was telling us to turn the heat UP! UP! 5 minutes later she came over shouting something and turning the flame off. Turns out she was telling us OFF! OFF! David got right into the noodle course trying to make fancy shapes out of the carrots and presenting it, I just got it cooked and eaten! The trip lasted over 5 hours.

We decided to get out of the bus back at the Old town market rather than our hotel because we hadn’t yet seen the centre; we both agreed it was the most beautiful town we had seen, coloured lanterns everywhere, boat trips all lit up, floating lanterns down the river, a very Romantic setting but we weren’t for stopping in a few bars tonight because yes, it was still pouring, and now soaking through to the knickers, even my waterproof shoes are foaming with the amount of water as I walk! it hasn’t stopped at all for over 24 hours now.

When coming to find the way home we had no clue, we hadn’t been to the town centre or the old town before and all we had was a soggy a5 map with no landmarks on it. We had to take a photo of the map with the camera because we were concerned it was going to disintegrate. We had to stop in a leather shop to ask directions but it turned out that we were on the right road just the other end. We were back within 10 minutes.

It was straight in for a hot shower then into bed to catch up on the blog.

This morning at breakfast we got talking an English man who was cycling through Thailand, Cambodia, Viet Nam and Laos just using his sat Nav on his phone-in crazy!

We ordered a taxi to the airport, although it was much cheaper to get a grab bike which is Uber for motorbikes I wasn’t keen on this with my big bag and the streets here so we paid for the taxi instead.

On arrival in Da Nang, the closet airport to Hoi an, the hostel taxi service picked us up, Although getting the bus would have saved us around 5pounds between us it meant getting 2 buses and a two hour local bus ride so it seemed worth getting the taxi, particularly with when we arrived the rain was torrential!

The hostel we are staying in is called cheerful and it certainly lives up to its name. The owner is so lovely, such a people person, but very full on aand initially overwhelming. We got a warm welcome with hot mug of ginger tea, she sat on the sofa with us and went through everything, the map, the trips, her recommendations, where is likely to rip you off in town, to avoid the night market for costs.

She is very trustworthy, there is a notepad by the fridge and if you want anything we can just take it and write on the list why we have had. She doesn’t stay here overnight her family home is across town so we have a key for the gate too. The other guests here are super friendly.

When she showed us our room we were gob smacked, it’s like a studio flat, kitchen area, dining table, sofa, TV, balcony with tables and chairs, and a bathroom.

As Hien, the owner was talking us through the map she noticed our rings and asked us and when we told her it was out honeymoon she was so upset we hadn’t told her because she wanted to get us a cake. Instead she arranged for a lady to come in and paint my nails for me as a wedding gift!!

At 3.30pm Hien took us on a free of charge street food tour, there was about 8 of us and we took the hostel bikes, not only did we have the crazy roads to contend with but my left peddle was falling off, the bikes are made for very small people so as you turned the handle bars your feet hit the front wheel, oh and also David’s handle bars moved independently to the wheels so he was always making a left turn, and his tyres were flat! The plan was to leave the bikes at horns family home and then walk the tour, but the first stop was on route. We all made it together to the first place, papaya salad with deep fried rice pancakes and quail eggs.

Then there was a blip, on route to her family home five of us got separated from the others and Hien who was on a moped because of the crazy roads!!! We had to stand on the street corner by the hospital until she found us. Once all reunited we dumped the bikes and went to stop number 2…. A black sesame soup stop, we had tiny bowls to share of this thick tar like jet black goo, it had taken the lady 3 hours to make it, it was actually nicer than it looked, but a couple of spoonfuls and that was it! They tell you everything here is good for your stomach….. We will see tomorrow!

Stop number 3 was a steamed dumpling which was really strange the taste wasn’t so bad, we had green bean stuffing but the texture was really odd, so slimey!! Stop number 4 was papaya salad with noodles which was really tasty but the make shift cafe was a little grubby to say the least. Number 5 was a noodle bar a special type of thick, rough noodle only bought in Hanoi. Finally Hien took us to a bakery and bought us coconut bread and banana fritters from another street food stand.

Wow so much food….. Only £2.50each in total. It was good to get talking to the other travellers, hear about their experiences and get tips.

The only problem now is that it was pitch black outside and still torrential rain. Riding back to the hostel on dodgy bikes was not the safest of plans…but it was the plan. We made it in one piece…

In the evening we stayed in the hostel because of the weather being so shocking.We had a beer and tried to plan the final flights for the Philippines etc but our cards weren’t working at all. I had to ring the bank which opened a whole unexpected can of worms.

My bank card has been copied whilst we’ve been out here likely by an ATM but can’t rule out online also and someone had made multiple attempts to clear our account….great! Luckily they only got a fiver from us but 30minutes on the phone later resulted in a 60quid phone bill and a blocked card. Fabulous. David’s is ok to use still but it’s made us extra cautious about using the card, I have been aware of checking the ATMs for scanners but still got caught out!!

So a quiet early evening turned into a late expensive one!…. And it’s still torrential downpours. Apparently the rainy season is delayed and tourism has decreased as a result in the town.

The WiFi isn’t strong enough to add photos well , I will do my best to get them uploaded but may be at our next stop.

When we finally arrived last night we found our hostel no problem at all really, it’s just off the Main Street in Ho Chi Minh and the nightlife is bouncing here! The hostel is beautiful, and very helpful and informative, and surprisingly quiet! We were absolutely knackered after the journey but we went for a couple, turned into quite a few drinks because we found a bar on the main strip with a live band playing.

Today we had a tour planned for the chu chi tunnels that we booked through the hostel, another really early start with breakfast in the hostel before the pick up at 8am.

This half day tour quickly turned into a full day tour with Vietnamese time, we first walked around the full city picking a load of other people up before waiting on a coach. There ended up being 40 people on the tour and the tour guide, although his English was reasonable you couldn’t understand a word he said through his accent and holding the microphone far too close to his lips. He also loved a story so he spoke for the full hour until we stopped. The only thing I learnt from his talking is that he wanted us to call him Mr. Bing which cracked me up thinking about Chandler in friends. We stopped at some pottery factory for the handicapped which was totally random but also very impressive and the end products were quite nice, but not nice enough to carry in our backpacks.

Another hour to the tunnels and Mr. Bing was our tour guide too, he was easier to understand without that microphone! although he kept saying I’m not a very good tour guide I’m just a driver he was very knowledgable and turns out he was an interpreter in the war for the Americans so he could tell us all about the history of the place. He kept asking if he was allowed to tell us another story. He was quite rude about the Americans referring to their asses getting stuck in the tunnels, and their asses making very big shooting targets. He loved the word ‘bullshit’ in every sentence.

The Vietnamese, from his perspective, seemed very clever in the war, they recycled all the empty bomb shells into booby traps for the Americans, they dug 200km of tunnel on 3 levels by hand and even an outlet into the river to prevent the system flooding, a tactic that was attempted to flush the troops out. They even used American waste at the vent holes to trick the sniffer dogs into smelling Americans rather than Vietnamese.

Finally we could go through a tunnel. It was very claustrophobic, dark and damp. I almost bottled going through it because you couldn’t see where the next exit was and it was metres below ground and only 1.3m high. Not sure how the troops did it. (David also saw a huge spider in there and although I didn’t ask at the time I clocked that he had seen something by his face but chose not to ask for fear it would send me into melt down 2 m below ground). I came out at the emergency exit just before the final part of the tunnel. Partly because I had just had enough of crawling by then but also because I had had enough of staring at the girls butt cheeks in front of me because of her short dress which wasn’t designed for such adventure… I left that delight for David once I had left and he carried on.

Finally mr Bing started to recommend lots of books for us to read which avoided the American ‘bullshit’. He had written one called three moons of Vietnam. He then started to sing…. hey Jude…. telling us all he loved us and to sing along. So there we were in the jungle at the chu chi tunnels with a group rendition of hey Jude led by the one and only mr. Bing,

!!!!!!!!!

On the way back we stopped for lunch at some random restaurant….if you can call it that. It was the worst food we had had yet!!!!! Disgusting. Similar to microwave noodles but served still in the square block with flash fried vegetables on top. For the who asked for meat that was placed on top. Never again!

We had great plans for our afternoon after our half day morning tour which ended at 4.30 pm. This meant that the war museum and the market were out! Instead we tried to plan transport for the rest of the trip because of Chinese New Year we are trying plan the rest of Vietnam, but travel is selling out quick and escalating in cost.we have managed to get flights sorted from Hanoi right through to Singapore but we haven’t yet sorted getting up to Hanoi in the north of Vietnam.

We ate in a restaurant called coriander which came as a recommendation. David’s red curry was unbelievable, I completely ordered wrong and ended up with battered veg on a massive plate with a pot of plum sauce, not even edible for the second time today. Good job David’s was a enough to feed 2!

Couple of beers as per at the same bar as last night before bed.

We move to Hoi An tomorrow by plane.

I’m having trouble with uploading photos but there are plenty from today, will add them on when I can

I did not sleep at all last night!!! David zonked as soon as his head hit the pillow. Think I was worrying about waking up to get to the embassy.

We were up and out by 740, and ordered a grab tuktuk. It took ages in the crazy roads and in rush hour. We arrived in the embassy for 815 and turns out if your application is in by 9am your passport is back to you by 11am…. Dancer. Only downside is it’s 60 USD each, this has been the most expensive attempt at crossing the border.

We found a cafe booked a bus for 2pm and booked the next 7days of hostels so we have a planning place!! At 1030 we went back to embassy and could I find the receipt for the passports….no! Luckily we got them back with a driving licence. On leaving the embassy I found the receipt neatly folded between the notes in my purse where I had paid! Just too tired today.

We had our passports by 11am but we went straight to the bus station by tuktuk and got some food and just waited. Whilst in the station we played the new backpacking card game which is a relief to traditional cards. The first 2 cards David dealt me were…Vietnam country card and visa problem event card, well that was considered a bad omen.

We boarded the bus, not too bad actually, plenty of room, air con, fully reclining seats.

I enjoyed watching outside as we passed through the villages, watching them farm and tend to animals, some houses are beautiful whilst others just shacks but the litter is upsetting. David played a good 4 hours of football manager as all the buildings were the same as the rest of the country!

Just before arrival at the border we had a quick meal at a restaurant, veg and rice! I’ve discovered their sweet chilli sauce adds a bit of a kick to it!

As we approached the border the casino hotels were huge all with neon lights, David said it’s something to do with gambling laws in Vietnam that they also cross the border to go to the casino’s.

At the border we got off the bus, we got back on the bus, we then got back off again but this time with our luggage and the bus driver took all our passports to get us through together. One guy on the bus has already used his visa and had left Vietnam but only had a single entry one so had to pay a lot of money to get it sorted and resulted in us waiting for ages for it!

Were still on the bus now, hopefully not too far to go, looking at the map the bulk of the journey is done. Hopefully when we get off the bus in Ho Chi Minh the hostel is only 4minutes walk away…. We will see!

The hostel has been quite comfortable overnight, quiet and cool we had a bit of a much needed lie in before heading out to the killing Fields.

We grabbed some lunch in a bakery before heading back to the hostel to ask what was a reasonable tuk tuk price to pay. The owner pointed to a man and said he will take you he’s a TukTuk driver but he already had a pick up planned. It seems that everyone here is a TukTuk driver!! Another man took us there for 15dollars return and waited for us to go round. He must have taken us through all the back lanes to get there the roads were terrible, the plastic rubbish is piling up along the roads of the basic residential areas. We went across a bridge which didn’t look as though it was going to last another day, all the metal sheets were moving and you could see the stream beneath, the last place we wanted to be was in that water!! The roads were that bad that the chain came off his bike and he had to stop to repair it.

The killing Fields are right next to a village which surprised us. I gave the driver a wetwipe for the oil over his hands but he didn’t get what it was!!

The first thing that we saw on arrival to the museum was the monument built for the victims. It also houses all the skills and long bones that they have found at the field. This is 17stories high!

We got an audio tour round. Again to think the was his is described was only 40years ago is too difficult to comprehend. There are over 300 more killing Fields in the country, some not even yet found.

The keepers of the graves have to go round every 2-3months and remove the bones that have risen up from the earth beneath. What struck me the most is the many rags of clothes entangles round the tree roots that cannot be lifted, the colours still visible.

We found our driver and he took us back to the hostel. From here I did a quick change from long pants to shorts and we found a bar to sit in for the rest of the afternoon. We booked flights that we know the dates we need such as Borneo to Singapore and looked for Thailand travel but this is not going to be straight forward unless we fork out big money. The problem were having now is that many of the flights don’t include baggage so we are being stung here.

We ended up having LOTS of beer throughout the afternoon and falling asleep for half an hour when we got back.

At night time we went to the night market to get tea. Hundreds of people were sat on carpets in the middle of the food stalls. I knew David was less than impressed because there were a few flies hovering around the bright light, but we’re in a hot country and on the riverside so it’s unavoidable. After the usually fried rice and veg for David and noodles and veg for me we got ice-cream in coconut shells, with peanuts and sweetcorn on top,weird!!!

After eating we went for a drink and played cards, we started inside because of the amount of flies on the Riverside. We then went to find another bar but ended up in Phnom penhs redlight district!!!! Hundreds of women sat outside seedy bars, neon lights, the odd male westerner having drinks. Straight back to our hotel it was for drinks instead!

At our hotel there was a sign out for breakfast options. I thought army style eggs must have been hardboiled eggs, it couldn’t be any other style! David cracked up, any style eggs!

Tomorrow is another early start, at the embassy for 8am…we might be back to this hostel if things don’t go to plan!

So we ace’d getting up at 4am this morning, ace’d finding our tuktuk ride to the airport, ace’d catching the flight and then the local bus to our hostel….. Then epically failed at the rest of the day.

We got the number 3 bus to the waterside and found our hostel no problem. The room is….ok. similar to Bangkok but then again a capital city which is filthy so we can’t expect too much. Instead of having a power nap we were super organised and decided to head straight to the Vietnam embassy to get our visa for entry into the next stop for us. We planned it on the map, of course in two separate ways, I claimed that my way was the most straightforward….it really wasn’t. After walking a good 8km David said ‘imagine this place is shut on a Saturday’ I hadn’t even clocked it was a Saturday! No less we got there and it’s shut on the weekends- we plan to fly on Monday but can’t without a visa!!!!! Nightmare. There was an internet café next door so we went in to refuel and apply for a fast track evisa…..70dollars later. Next to book the flight which were reasonable at first glance but as confirming the booking the flight increased by 50dollars each.

We decided to think about it and head to the teul sleung genocide museum. Which was about 3km away.

The museum was incredible! People are evil! To think all of that torture and dehumanisation happened only 40years ago is hard to comprehend. The former school was changed into a high security prison and the things that went on in there were digusting. With it still so recent there was still some blood on the tiled floors, original torture weapons, metal beds, shackles and make-shift cells. The photos that they display don’t hide the state of the prisoners and the torture they went through up to three times a day. We didn’t take any photos today because it just didn’t seem appropriate. We did the audio tour and on leaving 2 of only 7 survivors from the prison were doing book signings. Over 20000 people went through that prison in 3 years and only 7 survived, there were well over 100 of these prisons throughout Cambodia! How those survivors can step a foot back into that prison I don’t know! We would be interested to hear things from their perspective though.

On the way back we stopped for a drink and started to plan ho chi Minh, our next stop. We went back for a shower. On the way back David stepped on a loose paving block which sprayed black water into his sock, he was traumatised and actually threw the socks away refusing to wash them because they were going to stink out his bag!!!! Safe to say we won’t be wearing flipflops in this city!

Before tea we checked out some of the bars that are recommended in our book. On the walk to the basaac lane area there were beautiful street side boulevards with pristine gardens, pedestrian areas with exercise classes going on, picnics and kids playing football. How do They care so much about the gardens yet everywhere else is filthy and neglected!? When walking through the gardens that’s when I realised we had both forgotten to use bug spray- another fail of the day 🤦. The city is actually prettier at night! In one bar we got talking to a guy from Chicago who was heading home tomorrow after travelling.

We then went to basaac lane which was just a mock up of western streets with some mimicy pubs etc

Had a beer in one of them but decided to eat somewhere a bit more local. BBQ restaurant s seem to be most popular but with both of us not eating meat (apparently David’s ham and cheese toastie at lunch doesn’t count) these were useless to us. We had veggie green curry in the end. Finally we went to a final pub with WiFi to try to sort out getting to vietnam, and just to add salt in the wound the baggage was added on at very end of the increasing price to total 300dollars!!!! Disaster!!! We had used this website and this airline to get to phnom penh and not encountered this, must be because it’s an international flight and not domestic. We looked for travel alternatives and the bus seems most reasonable, although 6hours, it’s only 12 dollars. Further more the visa is only valid for air entry only. So guess where we’re going back to on Monday morning, the embassy for a new visa by land! Hopefully in time to leave on Monday or else were here for another few days…. Early rise this morning and eventful day, bed time for us!

Last night we are at a restaurant recommended by our lonely planet book called pots and pans. It did not disappoint the food was great, but the waiters didn’t understand why we were ordering no meat! We had a couple of beers here and then wandered around. We saw some lights coming from a high-rise and it was a skybar which looked interesting, it was a bit of a disappointment, the drinks were overpriced and all the flies were all over the place, we swiftly left after our drinks.

We got picked up at 10am from our hostel to go to the two floating villages by boat. The other family in the tie were Australian and nice to chat to. On the drive to board the boat all of the buildings and bars were on stilts above lush green rice paddies, in the wet season the farming converts from rice to fishing as the fields are flooded entirely. It’s the dry season just now but the rice paddies are boggy and the green colour compared to the rest of the dry country was noticeable

The floating villages are 2 different kind, true floating, which moves up and down the river with the tides that changes, and stilted which prevent the houses from getting flooded in the wet season.

First up was the true floating village, made to float with either bamboo or, more recently, oil drums.they have everything from houses churches and schools. The river around is filthy and murky.

Before heading to the next village we first stopped off at a crocodile farm, it wasn’t nice, there must have been 30+ crocs in a small compound at water level with 2 small pools, apparently there’s very few and far between wild crocs now. The tour guide tried o moly the crock farm was for tourist benefit but next to the crock compound was a shop selling every product you can think of made from their skin.

It was upsetting to see but it’s no different to intensive farming back in the UK and at least all of the animal is used with very little waste!

We then had lunch aboard a big ship, it was decent food actually, and strange that things that seemed fixed were moving around you and weren’t in the same place as when you got on. We had lunch with the Australians and chatted for about an hour.

Back on the boat we had a looonngg, finally we passed a few floating shacks with signs ‘crocodile meat restaurant’ and crocodile compounds attached. We had to get off at one of these for a long boat trip through the mangroves, not only were there crocs caged but also a huge python, and a rabbit 😥. The mangrove boat ride was nice, there were many many boats all with ladies sleeping waiting to take tourists. It lasted around 15minutes and around there were lots of underwater traps, catching probably anything that dared move! At one point we went off the ‘track’ through the mangroves and the lady picked a bunch of flowers from the trees for the women, I reluctantly took it but my first thought was all of the insects that it may hold.

The final stop was the stilted village which topped the trip off. At the moment you can walk right through it but in the wet season it appears floating. All of the shacks were on 10ft high wooden stilts.

Few vehicles were present and he kids were having a ball running around playing football. Along the sand track they were drying shrimp that they had caught from the river.

We got to watch the preschool age learn the English alphabet, each child had to go up and recite the board along with the rest of the class, but it was just rope learnt and we are pretty sure they had no clue what they were saying

At the top of the village, on high ground was a temple and then round the corner more streets similar in character. There was a total of 3500 people living in the village. On the next road there was loud music and there was a wedding party in a Marquee just in the middle of the track.

At this point we got a minibus pick up and headed back to Siem reap.

On the way home we popped into a local shop and got a new vest each for one dollar a piece.

Once we were back at the hostel I popped to get us a snack from the supermarket and a HUGE rat ran across the road directly in front of me, from one bar to the next, it was the size of a cat!! The lady working in the bar screamed and I quickly shot by…. Probably a good job we fly to Phnom Penh in the morning!!!

So last night we headed to ‘pub street’ the main stretch here but it’s pretty westernised, lots of beggers, stands, more roasted insects, I have just got used to the cooked insects with a stick shoved through them but last night I got the shock of my life as I walked by a stall and there was a young girl, no more than 6, with 2 live tarantulas in her hands.😫 David thought my over reaction was hilarious and kept looking for her again all night.

We had a meal, definitely both still eating veggie out here!! We attempted to go for a few drinks but we were both shattered from the early rise so decided to get some rolled ice-cream which is made in front of you with fresh fruit and head back up and plan our next stop- Phnom Penh. We didn’t get much planning done David faceplanted his iPad snoring!!!

Today was a good day! We got up and I popped to the supermarket and brought up breakfast, tiny bananas that are really sweet and choc chip bread.

We then went to the shop nextdoor to hire 2 bicycles, for 1 us dollar each, I remember seeing this store as we arrived and thinking no chance am I getting on one of those rickety rusty things, what a difference a day makes!!

Cycling round here is actually better than walking because you get a bit of a breeze, on the way up to the Khmer temples we got stuck in a protest and diverted to these tiny little back streets and stand still traffic of every vehicle you could think of, talk about thrown in the deep end. The best thing you can do in these roads is be bold and just go, and hope everyone in front of you moves out of your way. There is no rules and it’s crazy busy. David was actually pretty impressed I agreed to cycle given my new York cycling failings.

We headed straight onto the long route once we reached the temples, most look very similar but are much bigger than you think and it’s quite possible to get lost in them. We even found a swinging vine to have a go on, which was incredible hanging from the canopy of the trees.

There are monkeys all around and monkey attacks are quite common, I saw a lady batting one over the head with a water bottle as she tried to get off her moped but it’s because the tourists feed then scraps.

For lunch we got full pineapple each, david says I’m learning with the haggling because I got them half price! The best temple by far was the ta prohm which was made famous by tomb raider. This is all falling down because the amount of trees growing through it. The biggest annoyance here were the Chinese tourists who spend ages posing for photos in different outfits. I forgot to mention that yesterday we saw a Chinese tourist dressed as Lara croft!!

The bike ride was pretty lengthy, just short of 10km each way to the temples and then roughly 10-15km round them. By the time we were heading back we couldn’t feel our bums at all!

Tomorrow we have booked a tour to see the floating villages of tonle sap.

The flight was really early this morning and got us into siem reap for 830am, we both had sore heads from too much beer on kao San road, we decided to go there for tea and some drinks and had a few too many changs. We sat watching people and trying to decide which of the females were actually men, with quite a few pretty questionable! The guy on the next table was eating a roasted tarantula which was vile, but they like their scorpions too out here.

The flight was only 40minutes yet they served a full meal of Chicken pad Thai to those who wanted it, literally throwing it down the isles and clearing up as quickly!

Had to get a visa on arrival and strangely they work in entirely American dollars.

We got a TukTuk from the airport to the hostel, their form of taxi which is basically a cart with seats pulled by a motorbike. The country is just as I had imagined, sandy roads, dusty, cows, pigs, chickens and dogs roaming the streets.

The roads are absolutely crazy, anything goes, and it doesn’t matter how many go on a bike it seems, so long as the youngest children can be balanced off the side!!

We were thinking the hostel was going to be absolutely awful looking at the makeshift shops etc but it’s really nice, on a par with a travel lodge or something at home, much better than in Bangkok!

On heading up to Angkor Wat we investigated into push bikes but decided we would first find our bearings before braving the roads. We jumped in another TukTuk to take us up to the temples. David and I have very different opinions when it comes to bartering, he wants just to get the absolute lowest price and that is it, I feel tight if it doesn’t seem a fair price and would prefer to meet them half way than not budge on our part..David:’ I need to get a grip’

The way to the temples in the TukTuk the driver took us straight to the gate because he asked me if we needed tickets but I said no thinking he was trying to sell us them…it turns out the ticket gate and the entry ports are km’s away from each other, so he had to take us there. We ended up giving him more dollars than what we originally agreed but the driver wasn’t happy when we got out because he wanted more still!!

Angkor wat is the main temple and is one of the most impressive things we have ever seen, how they built something of that stature is incredible. What I found crazy was the detail but also the perfect symmetry of everything particularly with no machinery to aid.

The heat was also incredible! We went up.one of the pillars in the phot there but the steps were narrow, makeshift and really steep, 2/3rds of the way up I started to get disco knees and David rushed ahead to try and photograph me crawling up the last few steps nervously sweating

We went to find the next temple in the surrounding areas but we had totally underestimated the map, all we find were small shrines and baboons raiding bins, no people either. David asked a tour guide and he pointed us in the right direction explaining it was 3km away….. error number 2. We walked to the next one but decided for the next 2 days we would definitely rent a bike to get around.

Angkor Thom temple was very different to Angkor wat, much smaller, the same steep steps

And LOTS of Chinese tourists!

When David pointed out that I had a sweat patch over my bum from my ever so trendy bumbag we decided it was time to head back for the day, we started the walk back but soon jumped in a TukTuk, David has begun to walk like John Wayne because of his chafing!!

A bit later up this morning, likely because of the midnight cooking noise of pots clanging at 330am, whatever the lady next door was cooking smelt awesome but it took her a good couple of hours and made the cats start scrapping too. Following this the first call to prayer is at 530am and all the dogs howl at the call, just like Baxter does to landline phones!

The grand palace was on the list for today, we walked up the main road and grabbed a banana and mango smootie for breakfast from a street vendor, I was nervous about food from these places but there’s not much more choice!! We got to the palace, what we thought was appropriately dressed but they were so strict and made David buy a pair of long pants to put on even though his shorts were down to his knees.

Once you were through into the palace the buildings were mind blowing with the detail and the wealth in there.

We had only just got through and security stopped everyone, asked everyone to sit where they were and you had to cross your legs, we were in the scorching heat for over 20minutes, and not allowed to move because the princess was about to walk by, no photo s were allowed and it is disrespectful to point to things with your feet, hence crossing your legs. All of a sudden a few well dressed women and children walked by and then everyone was allowed back up as normal.

The temple of the emerald Buddha is the biggest building in there and fascinating inside with embellished gold, and jewels with a small emerald green Buddha on top a pyramid of gold. Again no photos were allowed inside but even the outside was impressive

The actual palace was impressive, ornate with many guards around the perimeter

On the way out we walked back along the main roads to kao San, we noticed there were more police around than what we had seen previously but then thought nothing of it up til we walked by a carpark and the locals were desparately telling us to get behind the wall and not take photos because the king was about to drive past. Many blacked out cars went by with police cars in tow and once he had past life returned to normal. The royal family is very highly respected!

Today is the hottest day so we grabbed a bit of lunch and a drink and watched the world pass for an hour or 2.

Tomorrow morning we have a 4am rise to fly to siem reap, cambodia.

Jet lag got the better of us last night and we were in our room by 630pm, I was ready to sleep but we had to try and stay awake, after a couple of card games we made it until 730 before crashing out. I woke up at 1020 convinced that it must have been the next day  and woke David… we had been asleep for 3 hours. It was the longest night of our lives!

Today we went to China town by express river boat. The boats are like taxi’s that come every 5-10 minutes but if you not quick off the mark at hopping \non they won’t wait around for you. They are 15baht pp per trip. Along the way there were so many different style temples.

We got off the boat and decided to wander around thinking we would stumble across temples and tourist spots…. Error number 1. After walking what must have been some of Bangkok’s worst streets for 2 hours and finding not a single temple, we were getting frustrated, signs would point you in the rough direction but then just disappear.we ended up in a Macdonald’s just to use the WiFi to orientate ourselves, some Thai men tried to help us but the language is very much a barrier.

We headed back to the pier and started from scratch, this time following the map in the travel book and much more successfully- this is the way forward from now on!!!! We reached multiple temples and the golden Buddha temple but we could go in because we didn’t have long pants on.

In the evening David had booked muay Thai boxing tickets at the local stadium, we walked up there(following the map!!) And ate dinner in a street market where there were lots of pop up stalls selling cooked Thai food, including full loops of intestine!!! We had the veggie options needless to say!!! Our full dinner for 2 90baht which is just over 2pound!!!

The boxing was a really good night out, everyone s on concrete steps except the vip ticket holders. We sat in the betting area, which we weren’t aware of until the locals moved us on, along with other westerners and it was probably a good job- the thai’s really got into the betting and got pretty rowdy. The boxing was good to watch, they do a dance type ritual before each match and Thai percussion music plays throughout.

Finally we headed to kao San road for a beer before bed, we tempted to walk there from boxing and managed it but only just! it’s typical of any bar strip in European holiday places, loud music, drinks on street, laughing gas in balloons and also roasted scorpions and tarantula.

We’ve arrived…… And so far so good, no arguements…yet! We definitely don’t look as chirpy as we did before we left. Flights were uneventful but Dubai airport not so…I was forced to submerge myself into eastern culture by peeing in a hole in the ground, let’s spare the details and just say I was unsuccessful. I came out of the cubicle to find rows on rows of normal toilets…fuming!!! The culture change was a bit of a shock, David was unimpressed with who I trust for advice out here and and I’m on a warning to only ask for directions from hotel receptionists. When we finally found the digs it was shock for our first hostel stay ever after a couple of hours sleep things seemed more reasonable. Bangkok is a crazy place and pretty difficult to get around so we decided to chill and have a beer and plan the next 2days

David and I are getting ready for the trip of a lifetime…… travelling through South East Asia for 2months.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton