After Hoi An I traveled further north through Hue, Hanoi and Halong Bay. I'm sure all of these places would have been incredible (especially Halong Bay) but unfortunately it was bloody freezing so I rushed through.

From Hanoi I got the night bus (30 hours!) across the border into Laos. As soon as I got here I was so happy. Its lovely to be back in the sun, away from big cities and traffic. Our first stop was the capital, Vientiane. Vientiane must be the smallest, calmest capital in the world. It about as hectic as your average village in the UK and a welcome break after Hanoi.

Following this first stop was Vang Vieng, the birthplace of tubing. I was really excited because I came here a couple of years ago with Claw on holiday. Vang Vieng is focused on an activity called tubing. Essentially this involved hiring a big rubber ring, floating down the river, drinking whiskey buckets and doing massssive rope swings. i.e. a massively cultural experience.

I spent 5 days partying, hanging out with Jess from Africa and generally having the time of my life. On the 6th day I woke up and knew I had to make a decision. Either I leave and get on with some proper travelling or stay and get a job....

I had already been approached by a couple of bars to see if i wanted to stay so I decided to stay. So now I'm "working" here for a couple of weeks. I use the term "working" very loosely in this context because Its the easiest job I've ever had. I get to work at 11.30 on the river. Hand out free shots, do some body painting, a couple of rope swings (trying to perfect a flip) and play beer pong for 3 hours. Then in the evening I go to a bar in town and spend a couple of hours behind the bar until the music gets good and then I'm free to partayyyyyy.

Some pictures of tubing.... more to follow x

Trekking for Gorillas

Night bus chaos

Hoi An is a little quaint town on the coast famous for tailoring.

cute dog

Hoi An old town

Hoi An old town

Hoi An by night

I could have spent longer here but I had to leave because I couldn't stop spending money. I got 2 pairs of shoes made and 3 new work dresses tailored all to the Carver dimensions (i.e. Chicken legs and a beer gut).

I went to the bakery and had tea and cake at least 3 times a day. When I wasn't shopping or eating cake I was cycling around with my new Dutch friend Margreet. We went out one day and found a completely empty beach all to ourselves. I heart Hoi An.

Me and Margreet on our secret beach

]]> Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=23649 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=194892 0 15.5 108.2833333 Trang]]. [[Vietnam/Nha-Trang]] is a large Vietnamese city on the coast. Days are spent recovering from the night before and the booze is CHEAP. Buckets are on offer for $1, everything is BOGOF and bad Mojitos are free.

Ankor Wat

recipe for disaster

Me and Stan on the buy 1 get 2 frees

Because I'm a right nan I could only hack 2 days before having to go somewhere to get over it. I found a place on the internet which sounded quite cool. It turned out to be a hippy commune/homestay on an empty beach about and hour away from [[Vietnam/Nha-Trang]]. I spent a couple of days reading books, eating incredible food and going to bed before midnight.

Hippy beach

dog friend

]]> Sat, 26 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=23649 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=194890 0 12.25 109.1833333

kite surfers paradise

The other activity on offer was visiting some sand dunes (just as windy but with lots of sand around)...

cole and me loving the sand

sunset at the sand dunes

...and drinking which we resorted to due to the lack of other activities in the area

]]> Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=23649 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=194571 0 10.9337758965102 108.284683227539 carver.elizabeth@gmail.com. Obviously only jobs insurance or becoming Americas Next Top Model.]]> Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=23649 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=193546 0 10.9337758965102 108.284683227539 Kampot (Cambodia) to Ho Chi Mihn City (HCMC) in Vietnam was without a doubt the worst of my life. I got on the minibus at 9.30 and was lulled into a false sense of security by a relatively wasy border crossing. Once across the border we stopped, were taken off the bus and onto motor bikes, with out packs. After a short, but almost deadly journey we arrived at another bus. It definitely wasn't the shiny aircon bus I'd been promised. It was more like a tin can on wheels. They crammed more and more locals onto the bus. Everyone that got on seemed to bring bags of miscalaneous seafood onboard. I had a bad of live crabs by feet and at one point a box containing squid burst so there was squid everywhere. No one like a humid fishy journey. I had no local currency and then also realised that I had given in my bus ticket to the driver from the first bus so I didn't actually have a ticket anymore. It was another 10 hours and a further bus jouney before we got to HCMC aughhhh.

I was meeting Collman and Matt who are here working as spies but pretending to teach English. Its sooo nice to see people from home. Hopefully we are going to the beach together tomorrow!

Today I went to the Cu Chi Tunnels which are the tunnels used by in the Vietnam War. The highlight was a very scary trip down the tunnels. We hadn't really prepared for how small and hot they actually were. If anyone had farted it would have been fatal.

Ricky in the tunnel

I could have been in Nam

Felix leading the way like a gentleman

Cu Chi Tunnel entrance

What budget...? cocktails all night yes pleeease.

Twin Towers

The biggest Jagerbombs I have ever encountered

I would have loved to stay longer but I was working to a deadline to meet Laura 'Cole the Mole' Collman and Matt in Ho Chi Min City. ]]> Sat, 19 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=23649 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=192100 0 10.6166667 104.1833333 I had such a nice couple of days there. I found a cheap bed in a dorm owned by a diveschool on the mainland where the divemasters stay. After being ill for ages I finally got my appetite back, ate incredible food and read 3 books.

deserted beaches do still exist in SE Asia

smmmmmmuggggggg

My private beach on Koh Kong

Bad wine and rehydration salts

After my pampering in PP I decided I hadn't had quite enough so we all decided to get our legs threaded. After which the beach lady accused me of having hairy armpits, so that had to go as well. This slippery slope continued until I had a small Cambodian lady in between my legs threading my bikini line....

Getting threaded on the beach

Laaaadies

Karen the burns victim

A day on the beach

]]> Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=23649 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=192097 0 10.6336149916561 103.524169921875

94662 beds! breezy but with some slight security issues

My 1st night in Cambodia was quite frankly ridiculous. I got there at about 7pm after a very long day and border crossing. I really wanted to go straight to sleep but I couldn't because I'd run out of water and so had to go out at least to get that. I'm not sure really what I expected from Cambodia but it wasn't what I got. Siem Reap is Uber cool. So cool that on my first night I decided it would be 'very london' of me to eat overpriced cupcakes for dinner.

Dinner

After my cupcakes I thought I might as well go and have A drink so found myself a pub/bar called 'Ankor What?!' sat at the bar and ordered a pint ($0.50). 5 pints later I end up in a gay bar being set up with an overweight Cambodian lesbian who complemented me on having a body shape similar to her own. Cringe. After a couple of swift G&Ts me and my new bessies Josh and Grant went to a nightclub and danced our little feet off to the likes of Britney and Lady Gaga. Josh and I occasionally lost Grant in the crowd but after a brief search would find him playing tonsil tennis with a very keen Cambodian lad.

Having a gay old time.

Auggghhhh its Lady Gaga

The rest of the week has been spent hanging out with a girl named Hattie. I got up at 5am one morning to try and catch sunrise over Ankor. I hadn't arranged any transport and decided to try my luck at bumping into some people to share a tuk tuk with. I didn't have to go far, I found Hattie, Babsi and Leo at the gates trying to work out how to open it and jumped in their tuk tuk.

Hattie and co.

Sunset would have been AMAZING had it not been Chinese new year. The whole of the population of China (all 1.3 billion) had decided to visit Ankor for sunrise that morning. It was still pretty spectacular though...

China

Ankor Wat

We spent the rest of the day visiting temples and eating pineapple.

Other than being a bit shaken up by the whole event I am fine. As I don't have a round-the-world ticket and I now have a bit of a complex about the dangers of South America I've decided to bosh some cash on some flights to Bangkok. I'll be arriving on Tuesday lots of beach bum, green curry eating, Chang drinking action. Sweeeeeeeet.

p.s. Hammond/Barney- go on, say it..... "I told you so"]]> Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=23649 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=186778 0 -41.15 -71.3 Apologies for not updating the blog for a while.

I´ve been in Argentina a week now. The flight here was absolute paradise. I normally despise flying but the flight was empty so I had 3 seats, a choice of terrible movies and unlimited blankets.

Buenos Aires was a bit of a shock to the system. Its a really big trendy city. It feels a bit like London and the bars and restaurants are gorgeous but I actually felt really claustrophobic because I´ve got used to being outdoors doing stuff. I spent a couple of Days there with a really nice girl called Claire who was also from the UK. We spent our time visiting the sites, drinking red wine, visiting museums, drinking red wine, and talking rubbish. After a couple of days I decided that I needed to get out of BA because it was eating a hole in my bank account and I wanted some greenery.

I booked a bus ticket to Bariloche in Northern Patagonia for the next day so me and Claire decided to go out and celebrate... until 6.30am. My bus left at 13.00. I woke up at 11.50 and paniced. The bus station was all the way over the other side of town and I had no idea where I was going. I packed (stuffed) my bag, but because i didn´t have time to fold I couldn´t fit all my things in so I decided there and then to dump my sleeping bag (mistake no.1) and thermarest matt (mistake no.2). I ran to the metro station and got on the underground to the bus station. When I got to the bus station I was greeted by no less than 250 bus counters (not an exageration) and I had to find which one corresponded with my e-ticket. I finally found the counter and used the only Spanish phrase I´d managed to learn so far "¿Hablar Ingles?" to which he answered no. I spent the next 5 minutes using the power of mime, loud slow english and smiling to communicate. Eventually I established that he needed the credit card I booked with (Tarjeta de credit for future reference). I made it to the platform just in time and boarded the bus. The jouney was 22 hours long, 22 HOURS LONG. Luckily, the buses in Argentina are very comfortable. The seats recline pretty much fully, you get served meals and drinks and you get to watch films that sometimes haven´t been dubbed over in SPanish. Since arriving here I´ve heard about a bus company that do bus bingo in the mornings so i´m going to make it my mission to get on that one next time.

I´m now in Bariloche and I like it a loche (Rausa I´ve completely stolen that from you and use it at every opportunity). Its basically a ski resort so all the buildings look very alpine, there are a million outdoors shop, a load of outdoorys people, far too many chocolate and ice cream shops and a shed load of activites on offer. Since I´ve been here I´ve turned into my mother and spent most of my time walking and cycling. The scenery is out of this world and i find myself walking around with a grin on my face for no reason.

South America has proved quite a challenge so far because I´m predominantly travelling alone and I speak no Spanish. Its normally not a problem travelling in countries where the language isn´t English because the tourist industry is geared caters for English speakers. Here the tourist industry is all aimed at Spanish speakers so its A LOT harder. All the backpackers here also speak at least enough SPanish to get by so I am quite a bit behind.

This week I´ve been attending SPanish school in the mornings to try and pick up some language. Its a complete pain in the A but its definitely worth while. Last night I went to Tango lessons with the other pupils from the school. I used my Jenny Reeds School of Dance (circa 1995) skills to pick up the moves quite quickly. We were then given partners. I was paired up with an overweight Mexican with sweaty hands and two left feet. Brilliant. We got the hang of it eventually but by this point I wanted to get out of there because the Mexican seemed to be having too much fun.

I´m going to be in Bazza for at least another 5 days because I have more SPanish lessons and want to do some more hiking.

Pictures so far...

don´t cry for me

Me and Claire talking BS over numerous bottles of Malbec

walking geek (mother, please don´t comment on my bare midriff)

bike geeks

This isn´t a postcard, its real life

wind swept

mmmmmm... beer and nuts in the sun

Getting in the groove

Me and the large sweaty mexican

Bite my ear... no thanks

I've booked a hostel, I've got a guide book, I'm really good at miming, I'm going on a new adventure...]]> Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=23649 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=180776 0 -33.9166667 18.4166667

Social hand grenade no.1

NYE

but it turned into absolute carnage. I only have these two photos because I lost my camera just before midnight, spent an hour distraught with all the staff looking for the camera, then found it in Edward's bag (I'd asked him to look after it for safe keeping). We decided to celebrate this miraculous find with a bottle of champagne and more dancing. Jessica didn't even make it to midnight and had to be taken home in a taxi after treating Meg's leggings to a multi-coloured yawn. A good night had by all!

The rest of our time in Cape Town has been spent Climbing Table Mountain, visiting Robben Island where Madela was jailed and doing lots of other touristy stuff.

Freezing from the top of table mountain

Above the clouds on Table Mt

Tourists on tour

Cape Town

]]> Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=23649 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=180753 0 -33.9166667 18.4166667 Africa]] for the wine and cheese marathon. We stayed for a night a half way between [[South-Africa/Springbok]] and [[South-Africa/Stellenbosch]] and decided to do wine and cheese tasting...

Warm up wine & cheese tasting the night before

The next day we got up and travelled to [[South-Africa/Stellenbosch]], THE wine region of SA. We were booked on the 'Easyrider' wine tour which was obviously a very sophisticated affiar involving 4 wine tastings and a cheese tasting.

Beautiful Stellenbosch

Tasting number 1

My new career

Jess didn't rate the Chardonnay either

I didn't think much of the Chardonnay

Tasting no. 2

Wine Tasting

4th wine tasting of the day

We stopped at some of the dunes along the way to go climbing an get even sandier. The climb was really tiring, took down both Jess and Meg's cameras (lens error- bleep of death), but it gave us another opportunity to do some quite blatent posing.

More sand dunes

Hot after the long walk up

Massive poser

Sand in my boots

Anyway I woke up the next day to find 2 stockings at the end of the bed.

Christmas Stockings

Sweeties

Stocking time (still drunk)

I had a terrible hangover/was still drunk but had already comitted to going sandboarding. Sandboarding involves lying on a bit of 6 by 4 and going head first down a sand dune. The MOJOR drawback of it is that there are no lifts so it also involves hiking up massive sand dunes in the heat, which doesn't mix well with a wine hangover. It was really good fun and by dune number 3 the adreneline had made me feel a little bit better. After a couple of epic fails (with a lot of sand in my mouth) I clocked 69 km/hour, which is pretty fast when your face is so close to the sand.

Christmas Day, trying to hide the hangover

Sand boarding

Sand Angel

In the afternoon we went down to the beach for drinks, secret santa and sunset...

Christmas on the beach

Sitting on Santa's knee

Sunset on Christmas Day

We're in Swakomund for Christmas which is a really odd german colonial town in the middle of Namib desert in the Atlantic.

I've got some sandboarding lined up for christmas day followed by dinner on the beach.

After Chistmas we've got a fairl long 4 days of driving to get to Cape Town in time for NYE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]]> Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=23649 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=178270 0 -22.6833333 14.5333333