Sweating it out in Vietnam

We flew into a very hot Hanoi (38-40 degrees centigrade, with about 80% humidity, swedish sauna style; the BBC describes the 'Discomfort from heat and humidity' as 'Extreme', err, yeap!) and had a couple of nights trying to get used to it. We haven't. We then headed on a bus-boat-bus trip to Cat Ba Island. We had two nights there including a full day trip round Halong Bay. We got stung for our trip. We'd haggled hard but when the boat turned up it wasn't what we had seen in the brochure! (Usual SE Asia stuff) We had a wicked day with some frenchies and a couple of Aussies anyway. We got our revenge though as we only paid a deposit and when we got back no-one wanted the rest of our money so we got a bargain in the end.

From here we got a bus-boat-bus trip to Ninh Bin with a bunch of other tourists who we ended up having dinner and beers with for the rest of the day. We had a day out on a couple of motorbike taxis and then headed down to Hue on an over night bus. It wasn't as bad as we were expecting and we're now in Hoi An. I've just been measured up for a suit and shirt for the wedding and I'll get to try it all on tomorrow! Claire is still deciding what she would like...

Here's a few piccies of the last week:

Claire's snazzy new multi-purpose brolly getting an outing in Hue. It has saved us from frying a few times already but we haven't had any rain since we bought it... yet!


It's pretty amazing what you can get on the back of a motorbike. I tried to get a photo of three bikes with what looked like industrial sized air conditioning tubes on the back but it didn't come out. :(


A view from the entrance of a cave in Halong Bay.


Me sweating it out under a Cat Ba sunset.

Northern South Korea

Jeongdongjin - Northern east coast
There were some lovely beaches in this area and great seafood restaurants, but the beach was surrounded by barbed wire and scattered with watchtowers keeping an eye out for North Korean infiltrators.


A North Korean spy submarine which grounded near the town in 1996. It's now on display for visitors to view. It looks pretty big on the photo but is really cramped inside, hence the need for the hard hat.

'Suncruise resort' complete with lifelike seagull squawks and foghorn noises on the 'deck'. It looks a bit strange perched on the top of the cliff in this otherwise sleepy town.

Seoraksan National Park - near Sokcho.
Ulsanbawi peak after a three hour hike with lots of Koreans in amazing hiking outfits. Most of them were wearing white gloves, not sure what that was for as it was 26 degrees!

Seoul - We've spent nearly a week in Seoul as it's a huge city with lots to see. There are far too many photos to go on here but below is a taster of what we've been up to.

Archery at Suwon Fortress. We both managed to hit a target 15m away once with our 10 arrows but Clarkie wins by hitting the correct target. The pros can hit a target 145m away!



Steamed dumplings at Namdaemun Market - we have been trying to sample as many of the local culinary delights as we can. Some have gone better than others. Dumplings can either be savory or sweet and we caused some panic in the restaurant when we poured some soy sauce on the plate with the sweet ones. Luckily the lady saved the day with a load of tissues. Oops!



Baseball Koreans, like the Japanese, are crazy about baseball. Whilst in Seoul we went to see the LG Twins, one of the local teams. The game lasted for nearly four hours which we weren't expecting but the crowd kept us entertained. Maybe the game we saw was particularly dull or perhaps all baseball is a bit boring but it was definitely worth going to see the fans in action.

Korea: Map

The latest view of where we have been and are heading:


View Korea in a larger map

More Korea!

Our last few days have been spent soaking up some culture in Gyeonju, on the east coast north of Busan. It made a nice change to Busan as only 280,000 people live there, so it was small enough to walk around. There was lots to see including tombs that look like grassy hills from the outside, which are Korea's version of pyramids.

Yangdong Folk Village A preserved 500 year old village which is a cultural presevation area . People still live there, in traditional homes mainly farming for a living. There were lots of tourists like us snooping around and having a good look round the few buildings we were allowed in! Some of the Korean tourists were having a good look round the ones you weren't allowed in too.

Ssambap Lots of veggie and meat dishes, the idea is to wrap up a little of a dish, rice and sauce in a lettuce leaf. It would probably be a really healthy meal if we hadn't eaten so much of it!


Clarkie enjoying the soju, the local cheap spirit. It's really strong, cheap and the Koreans love it.


Our 6 1/2 hour bus journey from Gyeongju to Samcheok. We were the only people on the bus for the whole journey and the very nice driver bought us a cup of coffee.


Samcheok - Clarkie mistakenly befriended this very drunk man with a partially shaved t shirt wearing dog in the local park, he was pretty keen for us to take photos of it!