Perth - Western Australia

Yip Yip Yip Yip. I can’t believe we’re actually here, finally. The flight was delayed due to insurmountable technical difficulties (no sound on the video which doesn’t bother me since I’ve not seen any TV in 14 weeks and am not missing it a bit, but Ruby’s gagging to watch the Simpsons movie). Arrival at the airport was the usual palaver, declaring anything made of wood, any food….we declare the biscuits and the wooden motorbike we’ve bought as a Christmas present, both of which are subjected to careful scrutiny, and then the bags are scanned. We’re interrogated as to what else is in the bags as they haul off the book bag and Will and I look at each other blankly. Did we read the declaration? Yes. Did we understand it? Yes. Do we know what’s in the bag? Ummmm, some books. Homework. Pens. Nope. Three bamboo recorders, some Kampot pepper and a wooden frog. Busted. Shit, we’d completely forgotten about those and now we’re going to get a mark against our names so that any time we come into Australia, we’ll be subject to extra close scrutiny and fined if we fail to declare anything. Closer scrutiny? It’s already so close, I’m figuring next time I’ll be strip searched. Must make sure I’m wearing my Agent Provocateur. Ruby’s saying “mum, what about that puppet of mine that’s in your backpack, that’s made of wood” and I’m kicking her in the shins to shut her up.

We didn’t arrive until 2am at West Beach Lagoon, our apartment on Scarborough Beach (known as Scabs to the locals) so wake up unusually late and hungry the next morning. A walk along the beach front for brunch where we discover fish and chips costs £11. About turn and into Coles the supermarket where we find that blueberries are £3.50 and limes are 75 pence each. Enough shopping for the next 2 days meals, without any alcohol, sets us back £80. Lucky we hit duty-free in Hong Kong.

Scabs beach is gorgeous. A long sandy stretch of clean sand, turquoise sea full of surfers and kite-surfers…and a wind that whips up the sand and blows it really hard onto the back of your legs. Three months travelling through South East Asia with hardly a tear, and here we are, just stepping onto our first Aussie beach and both the kids are screaming and crying because the sand is stinging their legs. I can’t help but laugh and this only makes matters worse. So I laugh again. We’re off the beach quicker than you can say G’day Mate and back to the safety of our apartment pool and two plates each of long-awaited pasta, pesto and tuna for the kids dinner.

We originally planned to hire a camper-van and drive off down to the Margaret River (wine country) but, since we’re heading into high-season here, we can’t get one unless we take it for 10 days, so instead we’re picking up a car tomorrow and we’ll hopefully find hotels along the way. I’m excited about getting a car and taking each day as it comes rather than having to book hotels on the internet in advance. Everything feels so easy here compared to the last 3 months; being able to buy food in the supermarket, cooking the food you want to eat, having an English speaking person on the other end of the phone when trying to book anything, even doing your own cooking (tonight, it was prawns cooked on the barbie at the side of our pool…) and doing my own washing in the laundry room. Not sure how long that particular novelty will last.

Hong Kong and Disneyland

The kids have been so good on this trip, I kind of feel like we owe them this early Christmas treat of 2 days at Disney and have booked us into the Disney Hollywood Hotel, an art-deco “palace” resplendent with Mickey Mouse ears.

They’re so hyper they can hardly sleep and I’m so exhausted, I can hardly keep my eyes open. Somehow, Mickey Mouse doesn’t hold the same allure for me as for them. The room has fantastic views across the South China Seas, but Ruby’s more interested in the free Mickey slippers and shampoo and the face cloth rolled up to look like a duck. And you can imagine their delight when faced with Mickey shaped biscuits at breakfast the next morning.

Hong Kong Disneyland is only a couple of years old and, once again, we’re one of the very few Westerners there. This doesn’t surprise us anywhere near so much as the fact that over 80% of the visitors here are adults. Not only are they immensely enjoying Winnie the Pooh rides built for 5 year olds, they’re practically pushing the kids out of the way in their quest to be photographed standing next to Goofy. It’s all very odd.

Despite Ruby’s unprompted promise not to let on to Harley that Mickey and Co are in fact “just people wearing costumes”, she’s gradually warming up and losing some of her worldliness so that, by the time she spots Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, it seems she’s completely forgotten that they’re just people wearing costumes. We stay for the 5.30pm Christmas Parade and right through until the 8pm fireworks display. We’re hoping they’ve had enough, but no, they want to come back the next day.

I’m not a fan of Legoland and my abiding memory of it is always fat people walking around eating chips, and so I use it here for comparison. It’s costs over £100 for a family of 4 to get into Legoland, where you can buy something delightful like a hotdog for lunch for a very reasonable £5. £9 if you add a coke and £20 if you add the chips and more chips from the Healthy Lunch Menu. Here, it’s £70 for a family of 4 to visit for 2 days. I have a delicious prawn tempura lunch, complete with rice, miso soup and green tea for £3. The kids share half a spring chicken with green beans, carrots, corn on the cob and rice, plus a huge bowl of mushroom soup for about the same price. Will gets a bowl of pork ramen (noodle soup) big enough for a family of 4. Plus fresh juice, all under a tenner. Not a chip in sight.

Two nights in the Disney hotel is quite enough and, since it’s situated on Lantau Island, about 20 minutes away from the mainland, we decide to move for our last 2 nights. The Metropark Hotel is a nice little 4 star situated in Kowloon and you’re not greeted by Mickey Mouse on your shower curtain, which is always nice.

We only have one day here and since Will has been here 3 times before and I’ve been twice, the last time for 10 days (thanks Sam, I never recovered from that freezing cold February where I had to sleep in my clothes. Or your snoring, which still haunts me!), we have no particular desire to see anything, but think we should do our touristy bit for the kids and take them on the funicular up to the Peak which offers a sky-high view over the city. By the time we come back down, take the open top bus down to the port and then hop on the Star Ferry across the harbour as the sun is setting, we’re just in time to meet Will’s client Thomas Lai at my chosen restaurant for the evening, Aqua (thanks Nick, for the recommendation; we do still like the same places!). Located on 29th floor with amazing views over the harbour, we’re treated to dinner by Thomas’ wife Miranda, who has also turned up with a big tin of chocolate biscuits from Mark and Spencer for the kiddies.

Siem Reap and Ankor Wat

There’s really only one reason to visit Siem Reap and that’s to see Ankor Wat, the biggest religious monument in the world. Ankor was built in the 12th century and took 30 years to build. I guess Rossi was working on that job.

Most people who come here get up at 4am to see the sunrise over Ankor Wat, but we decide that we’d rather go later thus avoiding the early morning crowds and with the added bonus of not having to deal with two irritable children all day who’ve been up since before a sparrow’s fart. Wandering around a bunch of old temples doesn’t rate very highly on a 3 and 7 year olds list of great ways to spend a day, so we set off with our driver and guide at a sedate 8am.

The drive up to see Ankor Wat passes alongside the beautiful man made moat, 5km long, which surrounds the whole temple. I know I’m meant to rave about the beauty of Ankor Wat in the morning light here, but actually, the moat was the most beautiful sight at that time in the morning, with the sunlight just glinting off the water. The temple itself is part of a huge complex and is full of very intricate carvings of the Hindu battles between the gods and the demons. Interesting to see if you ever find yourself in this part of the world, but not nearly so stunning, for me, as Bayon, the temple with huge faces carved into the stone. Last on our list was Ta Prohm, famously known as the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed. This place is amazing. Unlike most of the other temples which fill this area, the jungle has only been partially cleared here and it’s now very much a match between jungle vs. temple for King of the Jungle. Huge silk-cotton trees and strangler figs are growing amongst the stones and there’s some huge trees growing on top of the temple, the massive roots pushing down through the stones to reach the jungle floor. As the roots get larger, the stones are pushed apart and the temple is literally held up by the roots of the trees. When the tree dies and falls over, it takes a large chunk of the masonry with it.

We’re growing to love bite-sized chunks of history, such as our hour scoot around museums and palaces before they close for a 2 hour lunch break and this proves to be a perfect bite-sized visit to 3 very different temples. The great thing about having a guide, rather than taking a tour, is he can give you quick, concise directions “over here you will see…..up there…..down here…..want to see more? No, ok, let’s go”. Leave home at 8am, back home by 3.30pm with uncomplaining kids – always a bonus. Will’s decided his favourite was the mother of all wats, Ankor, Ruby likes Ta Prohm, I like Bayon and Harley just wants to play with his cars.

Siem Reap itself is a great little town. We’d got the local bus up from Phnom Pehn which took 6 hours and an hour or so into the journey, Will had mentioned how, this being the 27th November…..except it was 26th November, meaning we’d checked out of Phnom Pehn one day early and now had nowhere to stay tonight. And we’ve been having a nightmare finding places to stay as it’s high season. Cut a long story short, we end up staying one night in Villa Eurasian, a family house with a couple of rooms to rent. Upon arrival, in the dark, we’re deposited hungry and tired at a house with nothing to eat or drink. We’re directed to Café Eurasian which has the same owner as the Villa. First impressions aren’t good, with a big green neon sign, but inside was gorgeous with abstract art sculptures scattering the gardens and paintings by the niece of John Constable, Sasha. Great French food and such a friendly French host, we knew he’d been living abroad for some time!

Our next morning move to La Villa Loti and everything is right with the world. A great 2 bed room with the loveliest staff and just a little way out of town. We use the pools of the nearby Sofitel and Meridien when we need to cool down and go into town when we fancy some shopping at one of the two markets. There’s a great bakery, some lovely restaurants, $8 massages and good shops.

Will, as Chief Educator, has been teaching Ruby all about the various religions here and she’s now keen to see some of the Apsara dancing which is depicted all over Ankor Wat. The Temple Bar has a passable free show which saves us shelling out US$ 39 each to see it at the Sofitel. I, as Head of Research, get to sit in the Blue Pumpkin, with their free WiFi access and sort out our next accommodation (and log onto Facebook) whilst Will finishes off homework with her. I’m loving Siem Reap. We’ve got a one night stopover in Ho Chi Minh before our flight out to Hong Kong so I find a hotel, book it and pay online. Done. Now, Karen is….all sorted.

Our flight is at 5.30pm, arriving Ho Chi Minh one hour later and then our flight out to Hong Kong is 11.40 the next morning. Or not. Trying to check in at the airport, there seems to be a problem. I notice that they’re writing out baggage tags to check our bags right through to Hong Kong but we were expecting to pick them up at Ho Chi Minh, so we open each bag to take out clean set of underwear, plus the wash bag. This draws the attention of Big Boss who asks where we plan to stay tonight. I give him the details of the hotel, but he tells us that, without a new Vietnam visa, we won’t be allowed to leave the airport. We assure him that we checked it all out with a travel agent in Vietnam and that we can have a 24 hour stopover without a visa. True, he tells us, but that 24 hours must be spent in the airport, therefore we’ll have to spend the night on the floor at Ho Chi Minh airport, not known for it’s comfortable sleeping arrangements. He suggests that we try to change our flight out to Hong Kong for a later one that next day, then come back tomorrow to take the first flight to Ho Chi Minh, thus negating a 5 hour stopover instead of a 17 hour one. It’s Sunday evening and the offices of all the airlines are closed, we can’t get the telephone number of Ho Chi Minh airport from anywhere, the internet isn’t working, our original flight has just left and we’re now stuck not knowing what to do. I take an executive decision and we pile back into a tuk-tuk, which gets lost on the way back, and risk our luck back at Villa Loti in the hope they’ll have a room for us. We arrive in darkness as there’s a power cut but at least we can have our old room back. I head out into the darkness into town and am delighted to see the lights of Blue Pumpkin shining brightly. Half an hour later and the flights are changed so I celebrate with 2 glasses of wine and some spring rolls. Karen is…delighted not to be sleeping on the airport floor.

Back to the airport in the morning where we’re greeted by Big Boss and given VIP treatment at check-in. Shame we don’t also get an upgrade but with Ruby and Harley looking more like Mowgli as each day goes on, it’s not too surprising.

The Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Museum

Difficult to comprehend until you actually arrive and difficult to put into words the eerie feeling it gives you to visit this awful site. The Killing Fields is the place where thousands were killed before being buried in mass graves they’d dug themselves, most having previously been tortured or, at least imprisoned and starved in Tuol Sleng.

When Pol Pot came to power in 1975, everybody was ordered out of Phnom Pehn and into the countryside to work as labourers in the fields. There were to be no more doctors, dentists, teachers, monks….families were separated as the woman were taken off to work one set of fields and the men another. And then, in the middle of the night, soldiers would come and order whole families into trucks and drive them off into the night. They would be driven to a school, previously called Tuol Svay Prey High School, which had now become the main Khmer Rouge torture and interrogation centre. Upon arrival here, each person would have their photo taken and then, depending on their “crime”, they would be thrown into either a tiny cell where they were shackled to the floor or sent upstairs to one of the large rooms and shackled in a long line of people. Under intense interrogation or simply from starvation, many people would die here and their bodies would be thrown into a mass grave behind the school. Those that survived would be put into a truck and driven to Cheung Ek where death awaited them.

We visited these two places in the wrong order really, but either way, it’s not a pleasant day out. First stop, the Killing Fields. This is literally just a field which is full of mass graves, 89 of which have been dug up revealing the remains of almost 9,000 people. The skulls of these people have now been put into a monument at the entrance to the field as a reminder of the atrocities Pol Pot and his henchmen wreaked on this country. By the end of his four year reign of terror, 2,000,000 of the total 7,000,000 population of Cambodia were killed.

As you walk around the grounds, you see deep holes which were the graves, a tree which was used to throw babies at until they died, another tree where a radio was hung with loud music playing to drown out the screams of those being tortured, a glass case full of bones and another full of teeth, a site where the bodies of soldiers had been dug up, all minus their heads, which have never been found. And if you look down, you’ll notice bits of bone stuck in the soil beneath your feet. Bits of material poke through the ground – the clothing of another victim who has not yet been dug up. Look closely at the skulls in the memorial stupa and notice that some have axe wounds, some bullet wounds and some just have huge bits missing. After the former in-mates of Tuol Sleng have dug their own grave and then been killed and thrown into it, chemicals where poured over them lest some were still alive.

The location of the Killing Fields is actually really peaceful with a lake running by the side of it. Hard to imagine the atrocities which went on here.

There are 150 more of these killing fields scattered throughout the countryside which have not yet been exhumed and which will doubtless yield countless more bodies.

Although the children don’t seem too phased by their visit here, we figure they’ve seen and heard enough about death for a while, especially since Harley is asking when we will die and telling us that he’s scared he’s going to die and fall on the floor where no one will notice and will step on him. There’s also been much talk about wars and, for the first time, he’s starting to “shoot” Ruby, so we decide to take it in turns to visit the museum and Will’s off first, leaving me with them in the café opposite to order some lunch.

He’s soon back and I’m hoping my lunch won’t be coming back up as I step into the old school. It’s a very weird site because it’s still laid out like a school, with the classrooms in 3 blocks, facing onto the school yard. Except inside are all the signs of torture as they were previously used, alongside large photos of each victim as they arrived here. Then pictures of the torture that used to take place here, painted by a former inmate. Of the thousands of people who found themselves here, only 7 escaped with their lives as they were sculptors by profession and could turn out countless busts of Pol Pot. And just one person managed to escape, although there are no details anywhere of what happened to him or how he managed to do it. I’m not quite as upset by this sight as I was by the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh, but at least I’m not as blasé at the girl coming down the stairs, saying to her boyfriend “I just wanna see bullets and stuff”. Touching.

A few days later, we’re having lunch at Pacharan, with a great view of the boat racing on the river opposite and get chatting to a 50-year old Khmer (Cambodian) man who now lives in Melbourne. The youngest of 7 children, he was fortunate enough to have been sent to Australia by his father just a few months before Pol Pot came to power. His mother and father were separated and she used to come during the day to visit the kids and then go away again. He has no idea what has happened to his father or any of his brothers, although he heard that 2 of his brothers may have died of starvation. His mother survived only because she was “employed” to look after the children of the Khmer Rouge. It’s an all too familiar story.

Phnom Pehn, capital of the Kingdom of Cambodia

We’re still struggling to find hotels and have taken the recommendation of the concierge at the afore-mentioned Independence Hotel who has kindly called in a favour and found us a room at his old work-place, the Goldiana. It was a nice thought, and it at least got us a room for the night, but just walking into the lobby made me claustrophobic; low ceiling, painted dark green, swags and tails on the curtains, pleated net curtains, wood panelling, swirling patterns on the carpet…it looked as though it had been interior designed by Liberace on acid. Let’s not even talk about the view. Actually, let’s talk about it. One room had the beautiful view of….not sure what as the windows were so dirty we couldn’t see out of them and the other room was built literally 3 inches away from the brick wall of another building giving a view of….brick. I spend a frantic hour on the phone trying to find somewhere else to stay and manage to find a room for one night at the Juliana, which I’m hoping is no relation of the Goldiana.

A morning taxi over to the much nicer Juliana to discover that, no, they don’t have a room for us. There’s no record of our booking and they have only one room left in the whole hotel, available for just one night. It has one double bed and they want $40 to put 2 extra beds in the room. Up ‘til now, we’ve almost always paid nothing for extra beds and, even on the rare occasions that we have paid, it’s been a nominal charge. Will refuses to pay on principal and the manager refuses to budge, so coming back from dinner, we sneak a couple of the sun lounger cushions from the swimming pool and, with a couple of extra blankets, make the kids perfectly cosy beds on the floor for the night. Ruby tries to strike a deal where she and Harley get half of the money we’ve saved by making her sleep on the floor, and Will almost goes for it just for her audacity.

We would still have been homeless the next day had the manager of the Juliana not taken pity on us and phoned around to find us somewhere to stay (I think we can safely assume he didn’t notice that a) we used his pool cushions as beds, and b) that Will snuck them into the wardrobe of our neighbours’ bedroom as we left in the morning, rather than be rumbled by the cleaners). He secures us a room at the Holiday Villas with ample beds, but I send Will on over for a look at the place before trusting a second hotel employees’ opinion on what makes a good hotel. We’re more successful this time and manage to book in for the next 4 nights without any further ado, without having to steal any bedding for the kids and without having to pay extra for their beds. I finally feel like we can get to grips with this place rather than wasting time each day looking for hotels, packing up bags and moving again.

Gabby has recommended that we visit the Green Vespa cafe, a favourite of Ella and Florence’s when they were here, mostly for the Heinz baked beans. They may not feature very high on the top of your list of great things to eat, but after you’ve been in South East Asia for nearly 3 months, let me tell you they taste damn good, especially to a 7-year old who hates anything with even a sniff of spice. They’re also doing a Monday night wine and cheese special where you can buy a bottle of red wine plus a plate of various cheeses for less than the price of the wine on it’s own. And if that wasn’t enough, they have a healthy looking dog who’s just given birth to a pile of puppies, all lying huddled together in a box, just outside the door. Having been forbidden to touch dogs throughout our trip, the kids are dying to stroke her. I check with the owner that she’s okay and he assures me that she’s friendly. Ruby bends down and gives her a stroke then Harley wanders over to do the same. He bends down and GRRRRR!, she bites him right in the cheek. Poor little thing was so scared he didn’t know what to do with himself. And neither did the owner who was mortally embarrassed and couldn’t look us in the eye even when bringing ice. He later assured us that the dog only ever growled at beggars and the butcher, so either Harley looked a right scruffy little urchin or he smelt like a pork chop. Neither is good.

We’ve heard about this weird Korean restaurant called Pyong Yang where the waitresses are identically dressed, from their hairstyles, their jewellery and even their make-up, who get up and perform on stage. It all starts off very reasonably. Ok, they’re all dressed in an outfit that looks like they were modelled on Ronald McDonald, all red and yellow stripes, and we haven’t a clue what we’re ordering to eat, but then it all gets a bit surreal. One waitress takes to the keyboard and another sings On Top of The World by Karen Carpenter in a speeded-up opera version, replete with heavy Korean accent. Next up, a dancing, high-leg kicking, quartet accompanied by a crazed violinist doing Frank Sinatra. Then a bit of electro-pop accompanied by some ballroom dancing. All performed by 7 identikit women who, between skits have to rush back to take an order. Ruby’s transfixed, Harley’s fallen asleep and Will and I are wondering what they put in the food.

After a day visiting the Royal Palace, we find the Foreign and Colonial Club, a high-ceilinged, open-aired bar facing the river. That’s lovely enough before we discover we’re here in time for happy hour and they make a rather fine cosmopolitan – two for £2.25. I think I like it here!

Phnom Pehn lies at the confluence of three rivers; the Mighty Mekong, the Tonlé Sap and the Bassac. We’ve fortuitously arrived here in time to see the Water Festival, a 3-day annual event involving hundreds of long-boats and tens of hundreds of men to row them, upstream, in kilometre long races along the Tonlé Sap to its meeting with the Mekong. It’s packed with locals and most of the ex-pats seem to have fled town which makes for great empty bars and restaurants along the route, two of which have fantastic first floor views. The owner of the Green Vespa had warned us to stay clear because of the huge crowd, but I guess he’s never been to the Notting Hill Carnival. Granted, there were a lot of people here, but there certainly wasn’t any of that shuffling-forward-one-inch walk that you have to employ as a mode of transport on the bank holiday Monday in August.

Sin Ville

Sihanoukville sits in the Gulf of Thailand, on a headland, surrounded by half a dozen different beaches. We’ve suddenly hit high season and have had real trouble trying to find a room anywhere so have ended up staying at the Holiday Palace and Casino on Victory beach. In a bid to lure people to the casino, their rooms are really good value and we secure ourselves a huge suite for not much more than 2 separate grass-shack bungalows down on Serendipity (officially called Ochheauteal, but I think the backpackers who mostly stay here were too stoned to pronounce that) beach. We take a tuk-tuk down here one afternoon and are sadly disappointed. What was obviously once a beautiful bay is now ruined by side-by-side bars and restaurants (most selling pizzas with the possibility of a “happy herb” extra topping), large waste pipes every hundred meters depositing pools of god knows what onto the sand and the constant noise of jet skis bombing up and down. Serendipity doesn’t seem like a very fitting name.

The next bay over, Sokha, scores much higher. A 5-star hotel has been built in the middle of this beach so it’s much cleaner. Either end of it are open to the public and at one you can hire a beach chair for $1. A bargain compared to the £8 we paid in the South of France earlier this year. It’s absolutely beautiful here; white sand, calm, clean sea and blue skies.

We also visit Independence beach which houses the Independence Hotel. Once the resort where the King came to party, it was later bombed and only re-opened 2 months ago. It’s another beautiful white sand bay, mostly because there’s not another soul here except for the gardeners still clearing up the grounds. There’s also a distinct lack of guests at the hotel which gives us sole use of their pool for the afternoon, in exchange for having lunch there.

The kids really enjoyed going to the Snake Pit for dinner. Snake wasn’t on the menu (although crocodile was), but you eat surrounded by glass cases full of snakes, a huge open-topped aquarium in the middle and even snakes underneath the glass topped tables. Ruby bravely stroked the huge, yellow python which one customer had draped around his neck, but Harley wasn’t quite so sure, especially since we’d told him not to touch the bright green snake we’d seen slithering up the steps by the swimming pool in Kep.

It’s 3 ½ hours to Phnom Penh and our taxi, with extra small boot, awaits. So does the drivers’ mate who’s trying to catch a ride with us. He can’t understand why, with four of us in the back and two of our bags on the front seat, we won’t let him join us. To us, it’s stating the bleedin’ obvious that there’s no room, but he can’t seem to understand how we can’t squeeze him in for a free ride.

Only as we’re an hour into our journey do we start to understand his logic. We drive past numerous cars, overloaded with people and even with motorbikes strapped to the boot. How many people can you get into a hatchback? 16. Not sure of the configuration to make them all fit, but there were definitely 16 people inside. And the minivans were full to groaning, not only loaded up inside with people, but with goods, motorbikes and several people sitting on the roof. We feel like turning back and telling matey than he can sit on the roof if he likes – I’m sure he would have jumped at the chance.

Kampot

Kampot is famous for one thing and one thing only – pepper. Apparently, the pepper that is grown and produced here is amongst the best in the world and was a regular on the tables of all the best French restaurants. I can assure you, this pepper is damn good and I’ve taken to the Khmer way of mixing it with a little lime juice and covering my meals with it.

The rest of Kampot doesn’t get quite such good press. A small, dusty provincial town, with not very much to offer…until we reach the area known as Riverside. Stunning views across the river to the Bokor mountains opposite which provide a wonderful sunset spot for dinner at the rooftop restaurant pf Rikitikitavi www.rikitikitavi.com . I even manage to sneak in a hours’ $4 massage at Seeing Hands, a massage school for the blind. That’s massages from the blind, not massages for the blind.

Our taxi comes to Little Garden www.littlegardenbar.com in the morning to collect us for our 3 ½ ride to Sihanoukville, but our driver is like Sterling Moss on speed and manages to shave a good half hour off the journey.

Cambodia - Kep

Our taxi driver, Mr How, has been waiting for us for 4 hours as Will got the travel times mixed up, but we’re as glad to see him as he is to see us. We are literally in the middle of nowhere on a dusty, potholed road. The potholes often turned into craters and for the next 5 km, we lurched along at 5 kmph until we hit a tarmac road. We’re heading for the coastal town of Kep, which is 49 km away.

First stop, The Beach House (www.thebeachhousekep.com) with a great view out over the sea. We get chatting to a Dutch couple, Moira and Joost who are tripping around the world for 18 months and learn that Joos has just won $10,000 from a fruit machine in a casino along the coast, which is very handy as Kep is pretty much a one-horse town, without a bank or even a cash-machine.

Kep is on a small headland and the beach is a 1km long crescent of sand that was shipped in from nearby Sihanoukville over 30 years ago. There’s just one road that traces the coastline before doubling back on itself and electricity only made it here 2 months ago. Formerly a colonial retreat for the French elite, many beautiful villas were built here but little remains now except the concrete frames of the buildings, some still standing behind locked gates and some with families living in amongst the tangle of weeds taking over; no windows, doors or roof. After the French fled Cambodia in the 50’s, the villas were initially looted by the Khmer Rouge and then further stripped of every possible bit of wood, tile and plastic by locals selling materials to the Vietnamese in order to survive the 1979/80 famine. The constant sight of the houses serves as a poignant reminder of the devastation and destruction Cambodia suffered during the war.


We have to move hotels and we take Moira and Joost’s recommendation to go to Verandah Natural Resort (www.verandah-resort.com). A 15 minute walk up a steep road and set into the foothills of the Kep National Park, we find our wonderful 2 bed bungalow, reached across wooden bridges stretched between the trees. Behind us is a view of the jungled mountains and, in front, a fantastic view of the sea in the distance. The restaurant is the eating equivalent of an infinity pool with no beginning and no end, just a never-ending view across the trees. I’m so relaxed that I practically fall over. If you lived here too long, you’d be forced to take valium as uppers.

There’s not very much to Kep itself but there’s an awful lots of crabs. A whole bunch of women constantly wade in and out of the sea, pulling bamboo baskets behind them. Inside are an assortment of crabs, all sizes and various colours and people come and choose, either to take away and cook or to have cooked by one of the little shack restaurants that line the shore. Every restaurant here has crab as a staple of their menu and Will tries most varieties; in soup, in pepper and in chilli.

The official currency of Cambodia is the riel, but in fact, the US Dollar is more widely used and accepted with small change being given in riel notes (8,000 riel to £1). There’s also one bar in town, called, strangely enough, Riel that I recommend you visit if you like drinking pints of Ankor beer…for 75 cents a pop.

Heading to Cambodia

Despite Phu Quoc’s proximity to Cambodia (14kms), it’s quite difficult to get there. Most people take to plane back to Ho Chi Minh to get their visas, a flight over to Phnom Penh (capital of Cambodia), then a bus down to the coast. This is not only expensive, but time consuming too.

After literally hours of searching on the internet and lots of emails, including to 3 different embassies (which go unanswered), we finally discover that there is a land-crossing which recently opened between Vietnam and Cambodia which is only 3 hours away by boat, but everything we read says that you must already be in possession of your visa. We hear a rumour that someone crossed two weeks ago and managed to get a visa at the crossing and decide to risk it.

No Super Dong this time. We’re on an old wooden boat, with wooden benches a foot apart and an overpowering smell of fish sauce. The only foreigners on board, we’re joined by several motorbikes and a dozen boxes of fish. We provide the locals with 3 hours of entertainment as they watch our every move.

On arrival at Ha Tien, we get a taxi to take us the short distance to Xa Xia, where we leave from Vietnam. Then a 500 metre walk on a straight stretch of road between the most beautiful scenery on either side….and over to the Cambodian side where our visa are issued. Phew, sigh of relief. The guy initially asks for $74 of Vietnamese dong but we tell him we only have US Dollars, so he asks for $60 instead. The next step is the health declaration form where that official asks for $2 in exchange for a piece of paper each for Will and I with a telephone number on it in case of medical emergencies. I question him over the reason for the $2 before I realise he’s on the make. I take one and give him one dollar before telling him he’s “a very naughty man”. He’s about to ask for another dollar before changing his mind and going back to lie in his hammock.

Final stop, the immigration police who have to check everything’s in order before letting us in. He asks how much we paid for the visas and we misunderstand when he mentions $20. In fact, he’s not asking for any money, but telling us that the guy who issued the visas has just charged us $20 too much as the kids visas are free. I take all the passports back again and ask if he might kindly return the money which he’d taken in error. He looks me straight in the eye and says “I’ll give you $10. I need $10 for my children”. Nice try matey, but I used to work in the City you know. Hand it over now, before I charge you some additional upfront costs, admin fees, management charges and interest.

Fortunately, our pre-booked taxi is waiting for us, otherwise our only form of transport would have been a couple of bony old cows.

Phu Quoc - Island Paradise

The Super Dong turns out to be far less impressive than the last Super Dong I encountered, but maybe that’s just my memory playing tricks with me. Anyway, this one did the job (as did the last one, I think), and before we know it, we’re dragging our bags off the boat, into heat and…brilliant sunshine. At last!

We’ve pre-booked 2 adjoining bungalows at Cassia Cottage www.cassiacottage.com, right on the west-facing beach and we’ve made a excellent choice. A gorgeous view, a great stretch of beach, a lovely pool and even WiFi in our rooms, which is always handy for booking up accommodation at our next location.

Pho Quoc is Vietnam’s largest island and is home to some 80,000 people. I say it’s Vietnam’s island, but actually, if you look at a map, you’ll see that it looks much more as though it belongs to Cambodia. The Vietnamese border comes down in a pretty straight line then takes a wild swerve out to the left to include Phu Quoc…but that’s another history lesson.

We take a long walk up the beautiful stretch of beach and discover a clutch of beach bungalows, one swanky French-colonial looking boutique hotel (Verandah), one bar (Eden) and one beach-shack restaurant. Perfect. The water is calm and clear, the sky is blue and even the palm trees are bending out across the beach at the perfect angle for scenic photo shoots. We already liked it here before we discovered that a very good one hour massage on the beach costs $3. Bliss. The memory of all that rain soon becomes a distant one.

The shack is rather unimaginatively called The Palm Tree but their fresh seafood BBQ scores much higher. The freshest fish, huge prawns and squid, straight out of the sea, onto the BBQ and onto your plate. It’s run by a gorgeous guy called Anh Tú who has been living here, literally in a bamboo shack on the beach, for the last 10 years and we book onto his boat trip for the next day. We stop for some fishing where I hook a tiddler, but you should have seen the one that got away… several stops for snorkelling and then a stop at a true Robinson Crusoe beach; a tiny stretch of pure white sand covered in shells and broken bits of coral, surrounded by palm trees and only accessible by boat. Homeward bound, we stop off at Soi Beach in the Southeast where the waves are wild and the sand is white and the drive home, as the sun is setting over the ocean, along the longest stretch of straight coastal road pretty much wraps up a perfect day.

We took a trip north to investigate the jungle which covers much of this island and a short uphill hike takes us to a waterfall and a pool big enough for a dip. Stopping off at Mango Bay for lunch, we discover another gorgeous little beach and some great bungalows scattered around in the gardens. Definitely the place to stay if you want to get away from it all.

We loved it here and all said we’d love to come back. I hope it doesn’t become the next Koh Samui and change beyond recognition in the next few years.

Rach Gia and Super Dongs

After breakfast on the roof, we hop into our mini-bus where the lady from Bao An Travel Service (Welcome Travel), www.welcometravelvietnam.com (I only give you her details so you don’t use them, should you ever find yourself in HCMC) insists that we must take the front 3 seats and one behind, rather than our current two in front and two behind arrangement. Apparently, all seats are pre-sold and pre-allocated. We’re not 5 minutes up the road before the driver pulls over and insists that all four of us squeeze onto the front 3 seats. I refuse and they call up the woman from the travel agency who insists that the front row, although being only 3 seats wide, is actually counted as 4 seats in Vietnam. I refuse to move, as does the bus driver. We eventually reach a compromise where I will sit up front with him (all just a cunning ploy to get me to sit next to him, I’m sure). I feeling quite vulnerable this close to the windscreen, as he hits speeds of up to 130 kph on small windy roads, at times using the grass verge as a lane, and it’s very fortunate that we’re not involved in the motorway pile-up which we pass by some hours later.

The children are fantastic for the entire 7-hour journey to Rach Gia where we check into one of the best hotels in town (there’s only 3), Kim Co, where rooms are £6 per night, mating geckos for free. We splash out and take two (rooms, not mating geckos, who only come in two’s). A late afternoon stroll around in search of a restaurant for dinner confirms that this is a town largely untouched by tourism. The typical tourist takes a 1 hour flight from Ho Chi Minh directly to Phu Quoc, but since the flights were sold out for several days, we’re reduced to staying here for the night before our early morning boat. We’re somewhat of a novelty and manage to attract a little crowd of local kids who follow us in our search and Harley, as ever, is touched, pinched and stroked whenever he passes people. We eventually manage to find a restaurant but whichever chicken previously owned the legs Ruby had, I think he must have been a champion weight lifter.

With nothing else to do here, we get an early night in preparation for our 3-hour boat journey to Phu Quoc on the Super Dong, express boat. Whoever owns this also owns a sense of humour. “Hey baby, wanna take a ride on my Super Dong?” could prove to be the Vietnamese chat-up line of choice.

Chu Chi tunnels and War Remnants museum

The infamous Chu Chi tunnels are just over 30 km from Ho Chi Min City so we arrange a car and driver through Saignoncitytour.com. Taking advice from the wonderfully camp Luxe guide (www.luxecityguides.com) our driver Mr Thang stops at Annam, a shrine to Harvey Nicks food hall, so that I can pick up some food for a picnic.

The day proves to be a history lesson to rival any other, but unlike history lessons I remember, this one is fascinating.

Work started on these underground tunnels in the 1940s and it took 25 years to complete them. Built initially to evade the French, in 1960 the invading North Vietnamese communist army successfully overran many parts of the capitalist south, including Chu Chi and was one of the reasons citied by Lyndon Johnson to involve the United States in a war that, frankly, had naff all to do with them. But that just goes to confirm my (some may say tainted) image of certain of our Yankee brothers. Those canny commies went on to dig tunnels which came right up into the US base camp causing for many a soldier to wonder how it was that they were getting shot at in their tents during the night. The area around Chu Chi was virtually obliterated by the B-52s who carpet bombed it. The villages were evacuated and razed to the ground, chemical defoliant was sprayed from the trees and napalm ensured the job was finished off sufficiently so that there was no hiding place from the US troops.

Driven underground, the commies continued with their burrowing until there were 250kms of tunnels, some running several stories deep housing kitchens, hospitals and weapon factories. We were shown how the smoke from kitchens was exhausted meters away after having passed through a series of other tunnels, cooling the smoke down in the process, so that when it finally escaped over the forest floor, not only was it cool enough to stay low but it didn’t give away the true position of the tunnels. Some entrances were hidden underwater and could only be accessed from rivers. The men and women here would live underground for weeks, even months on end. In fact, one of the ladies who worked here was born in the tunnels.

There’s just one or two places to see where the tunnels are still their original size and even Harley has to crouch down to get inside. The rest have been widened and heightened to allow access to fat tourists, and still even skinny Ruby has to bend over. My slight claustrophobia gets the better of me and I decline the chance to scramble through but the others scuttle in and emerge hot and dusty a few metres further along.

We saw the bombs and missiles of the US Army, stacked up next to the crude but nastily effective weapons of the Vietnamese. Trap doors set in the jungle floor, landmines created from unexploded US bombs. All pretty nasty stuff.

For $1 per bullet, you can have a go at firing a rifle or even an AK-47. Plumping for the latter, I fire off a few bullets but this 30 year old gun is off centre and loud enough to make your ears bleed so I pass over the last 5 bullets to Will who also manages to miss the target. We’re both a bit spooked out afterwards to think that this gun was probably used during the war with devastating effect, although the sight must have been slightly better then to have inflicted any injury.

We decide to round off the day with a visit to the War Remnants Museum and ask Mr Thang if it’s suitable viewing for the children. He assures us several times that it would be ok to take them in and, since Harley’s now fallen asleep anyway, we take Ruby tentatively in. We’re greeted by the sight of old US army tanks and aircraft, an all too familiar sight to us by now. Pushing on inside, we can instantly see that this is not viewing for a 7 year old. Will takes Ruby to sit on a bench with him and sleeping Harley whilst I take a good look at the photos and stories on the walls. It’s a truly horrific sight: American soldiers carrying pieces of Vietnamese bodies in their hands, like souvenirs; smiling soldiers sitting around a couple of Vietnamese heads whilst the bodies lie discarded to one side; pictures of the area around Chu Chi pre- and post- napalm; torture; the My Lai massacre (where the American army suspected the South Vietnamese of harbouring the enemy, so killed every man, woman and child in the village, just in case); pictures of many of the victims of Agent Orange and, just for good measure, three pickled still-born babies, all badly handicapped as a result of Agent Orange. It’s more than I can face and I return, sobbing to Will telling him to go on without me. I take the kiddies outside to get some air and remember that the bottle of red I’d bought for the picnic is still sitting in my bag, and now seems like as good a time as any to drink it. I’m soon feeling better but you’ll have to read Will’s blog (www.willsworldtour2.blogspot.com) if you want further details about the museum as I didn’t move from that spot until closing time, when he returned dry eyed and completely unemotional. Boys, eh?

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

A short flight (delayed for an hour by a flat tyre which needed 10 people to prod and poke it, before attempting to pump it up with a bicycle pump) takes us to HCMC, formerly the capital and called Saigon until is was renamed by the Hanoi Government following North Vietnam’s defeat over the South in 1975. Everyone here still refers to the city as Saigon, but officially, it’s only District 1 where most of the government buildings and tourist attractions are that still goes by its former name.

We’re staying at the brand new Elios Hotel (www.elioshotel.vn) in District 1 and most things of interest are either a walk or a cyclo ride away. I have developed a deep sense of respect for the cyclo drivers who, I have discovered through my recent steep learning curve about the Vietnam war, were previously doctors, teachers or journalists here in South Vietnam. Post-war, they were punished by the new communist regime for siding with the U.S. (they didn’t, they were just too intelligent and the communists feared that they would not accept the new ruling without question) and sent to re-education camps, for months or sometimes even years, and stripped of their citizenship. Since their certificate of official residence has never been retuned to them, they cannot own property or even a business and are forced onto the streets, sleeping in their cyclos and eating on street corners. The government is now talking about phasing cyclos out so you have to wonder what will become of these men.

The traffic here, although far heavier than Hanoi, is much quieter, partly due to the fact that the bikes get their own lane on many of the streets. Even when our taxi knocks one of the ubiquitous bandana-wearing ladies off her motorbike, he merely hops out, wheels the bike to the side of the road and drives on.

Our tour around the city takes us to the Reunification Hall (previously the Presidential Palace) where the first communist tanks charged through the gates in their governmental overthrow. It’s a monument to the 1960’s, both in its architecture and it’s interior design of brown and yellow swirls on the carpets. It formerly housed the South Vietnamese president Diem, but he was hated so much that his own air force bombed the palace in 1962 in an attempt to kill him. The place where the two bombs were dropped has been marked and can clearly be seen from the fourth floor balcony. They might have missed, but his troops had more success and managed to kill him one year later. We’re slightly disturbed to find out that one of the pilots who bombed the palace is still a pilot, now working for Vietnam Airlines, who we’ve flown with a few times. I hope he’s calmed down a bit. Following the bombing of The Palace, it was rebuilt with a bomb shelter in the basement. These concrete tunnels also housed a cell, an impressive war room and a telecommunications centre to make Virgin Media proud, but that’s not really too much of a compliment.

The Vietnamese History Museum is housed in a gorgeous old wooden house with a beautiful courtyard in the centre. It’s located just inside the gate of the zoo so a wander around there seems like the natural thing to do. Sadly, there’s nothing natural about this zoo. The animals are at best living in cramped, dirty conditions and at worst, going out of their minds. We witness 4 elephants rocking back and forth in an area less than twice the size of our garden and an ape screeching and pulling frantically at the bars of the cage, as well as on otter scratching over and over at the same tiny piece of metal cage in a desperate attempt to get out. The various types of deer seemed to fare slightly better for space although several of these were limping.

Speaking of limping, we’re not really at all surprised by the treatment of the animals when you consider that the war veterans are seen on most streets, with one or more limbs missing, sometimes also blinded in one eye, and reduced to begging to survive. But with no other means of support (apart from their crutches), that’s the life they have been forced into. At least the zoo animals are fed and housed.

We visit Paris Square with a replica Notre Dame cathedral (from the outside. Inside it’s less impressive than my local, St Peter’s) and a post office designed by Monsieur Eiffel but with a huge portrait of Ho Chi Minh looking down on everyone. Not sure if Mr. Eiffel would have approved. Surely it’s the job of the French to look down on everyone?

Sunset drinks are imbibed on the 26th floor of the Sheraton, where a round of drinks during happy hour sets us back more than the price of a meal for 4 (including drinks) at most restaurants. Dinner at French restaurant L’en Tête ensures we’ve well and truly blown the budget once again.

Nha Trang and Captain Pugwash

A short flight from Danang and a rainy 40 minute taxi ride along a 30km stretch of beautifully wild, undeveloped beach. There are hoardings here to suggest that some mega-resorts are going to be built and, on the opposite side of the road, some shacks have already been pulled down and are being replaced by rows of 2-storey brick buildings. We pass several cemeteries, where the bodies are encased in brick and concrete tombs and at one, we see that several of the tombs are smashed open but no bodies are inside. We’re not sure if the damage was caused by a particularly strong typhoon or something more sinister…

As we pull up to the our hotel in Nha Trang Bay….a flood, right outside our hotel!! It’s the only stretch of the whole street that’s under any water – just our luck! But the Golden Hotel provides us with a huge room with two double and one single bed, a sea view and it’s bang on budget, so it’s not all bad.

Nha Trang is the perfect spot to arrange diving at one of the 71 outlying islands and this was our original plan. Unfortunately, the diving season ended two weeks ago and visibility is currently too bad for snorkelling to even be viable. From the beach, we can see a couple of these islands, including one with a huge Hollywood-style lettering in the hills saying VINPEARL. Truly a blot on the landscape.

There’s quite a European feel to this place with beautifully manicured gardens and children’s playgrounds set directly behind the beach and before long, we find the equally European Sailing Club where we settle back for sunset drinks. Ruby and Harley are playing at the waters edge when some particularly wild waves come crashing down, taking Harley with them. Before we can reach him, Ruby’s turned into Pamela Anderson (without the plastic surgery) and pulled him up and out by the back of his shirt. This must have (finally) given her an appetite as she devours 18 pieces of tuna sashimi like a woman possessed.

Next day, we’re heading over to the harbour to charter a boat and notice a cable car stretching across the sea, out to one of the islands, so we make for that instead. Only as I’m buying 4 tickets do I see that there’s an option to buy a package to include “all attractions”. It seems the cable car will take us over to the afore-mentioned Vinpearl, where the Vietnamese equivalent of Disneyland awaits. Unfinished and unsafe it’s a bit of a tacky affair owned by Sofitel (who owned the gorgeous beachfront hotel we stayed at in Bali earlier this year), the normally classy French hotel group. I don’t know whose idea it was to be associated with this venture, but I will forever now associate them with tack. Still, the kids had a great time and are now itching to get to Hong Kong where they will visit the real Disneyland.

Chartering a boat the next day, we get Captain Pugwash to take us on an island-hop. First stop is a fish farm on Hon Mieu which also boasts an aquarium. Housed in a huge concrete boat, I’m hoping Johnny Depp might be aboard but I have to make do with the cast of Finding Nemo instead. Next stop Tam Island for a spot of swimming and lunch. Will orders up some fresh crab for lunch and at £1.50 for 3, I think I might be curbing his extravagant taste. Ole Pugwash beckons us back onto the boat where he’s got a couple of totty sitting with him and tries to convince us it’s time to head back to port. We’re more convinced that he wants to turn into Seaman Stains, so Will puts his foot down and insists he take us to the nearby fishing village, as planned. This proves to be the highlight of the day as we hop onto a raft, pulled into shore by rope and watch the comings and goings of the fishermen in their gaily-painted boats. They’re moving from shore to boat via round, bamboo coracles, one of which we see destroyed by the local machete-wielding coconut picker who has failed to properly secure the rope used to drop them gently to the ground and instead they drop from 30 feet onto the boat and ruin some poor fisherman’s week. Not sure he’ll take a coconut as compensation.

Our evening foray takes us to a seafood restaurant called Truc Linh 3, where, not only is every single waitress in the place fawning over Harley, but Will is fawning over the selection of live seafood. Only Harley asking Will if he could go to see where someone’s chosen lobster was going (to the kitchen to be murdered) deterred him from choosing the same and he made do with a pile of prawns, each one as big as your hand.

There’s a photo gallery some way out of town where the owner Long Thanh (if he was Thai, would he be called Love You Long Thanh?) displays his black and white pictures of rural Vietnamese life for which he’s won several awards. He is a lovely man, easy to talk to and his equally lovely wife sits the kids down with a plate of fresh pomegranate so we can have a good look around. I particularly like the picture of a young boy running over the backs of wallowing water buffalos, whilst Harley appreciates the slightly more obvious qualities of the bare-breasted hill tribe women.

The kids are worried about missing out on Halloween and I fortuitously stumble across a bar (unfortunate turn of phrase there) hosting a Halloween party that night. I manage to beg, borrow and steal some black bin-liners and a broom and before you can say Blue Peter, Will and I have whipped up a rather fabulous outfit for each of them, turning them into a witch and her cat, for which, at the party, we’re rewarded with a free shot of something alcoholic and yummy.

We change our plans to head west overland to Dalat, home to the country’s vineyards and decide to continue south in our seemingly never-ending quest to find the sun. After the laidback, European feel here, we’re wondering how we’re going to cope with the onslaught of Ho Chi Minh City. But there’s only one way to find out….

Hoi An and the Killer Ants

“It’s raining men, hallelujah, it’s raining men, amen…”. Actually, it’s not, or else I wouldn’t mind so much, not even if they were small Asian men with very long fingernails. It’s not even raining cats and dogs, that at least would be a bit interesting. This is just continual, torrential rain and it’s getting me down.

The train journey from Hué to Danang supposedly rates as one of the best in the world, but for me, it doesn’t come even close to the stunning Nice to Monte Carlo route. Granted, it’s a pretty journey and you pass alongside some great little beaches only accessible by boat, but it’s difficult to see too much through the water pouring off the roof and down the windows. I’m hoping that everything I’ve read about Hué being known for it’s rain and Hoi An being so much drier will prove to be true, so I’m almost holding my breath as the trains pulls into Danang, waiting to feel some sun on my face. No such luck. We step out of the train, back into torrential rain, and into a taxi for the 40 minute ride into Hoi An.

We’re staying at Thien Thanh Hotel (www.hoianthienthanhhotel.com) which means Blue Sky. I wonder what Vietnamese for Pissing Down is? We have a choice of rooms; a small room at the back, with a balcony and a lovely view across (flooded) fields, but the kids will have to share a bed or, for $5 a night more, a huge loft room, with 4 beds but no view and only a couple of (very small, floor level) windows. We take the loft option as we figure space is more important than a balcony, especially with the mosquitoes below who are enjoying the pools of water everywhere.

We have to stay here for a few days whilst I wait for delivery of my replacement phone so we set off to see what’s here. Tailors, tailors and more tailors for a start. In fact, just about every other shop is a tailors. Will’s resisting but I’m keen to investigate so get myself measured up in a couple of different shops for some dresses and trousers. I take my Missoni dress into a third and ask them to copy it and we get a couple Ruby’s dresses copied whilst we’re there. I have mixed success and ironically, the least fancy looking shop makes the best fitting dress, needing only a very minor adjustment which takes literally 5 minutes to do, and a pair of black linen trousers which need no adjustment at all. Might as well get another one done whilst I’m here – they are only £7 a go after all. Will’s eventually decides that he wants a piece of the action so we check out the two best known and most expensive (of course) tailors in town. Adong, which is just ridiculously expensive (by comparison) and Yalay, which we decide upon. He gets 3 double-cuffed work shirts, 2 casual linen shirts and 5 pairs of trousers for £120. And postage home couldn’t be easier as two post-office employees come to our hotel with a box, tape and scales and it costs just £20 to send 7 1/2 kilos home.

In between almost daily fittings, we visit the old merchants houses, a family temple, the Cantonese Meeting Hall and the Japanese Bridge. We find a great restaurant/bar called Then and Now with great food and art, and even manage to squeeze in a 2 hour boat trip up the Thu Bon river. Hoi An was one of South East Asias major international ports from the 17th to the 19th century and ships came here for silk, fabrics, porcelain and lacquer-wares, all of which are still very much for sale today, only on a much smaller scale. It was largely untouched by the American War and the old town in another UNESCO site, preserved in all its glory and thankfully closed off to traffic, making for a gorgeous place to wander around without fear of being run down.

One morning, it’s actually stopped raining and we head for Cua Dai beach, a 30km stretch of wild, yellow sand lapped by slightly scary waves. It’s a gorgeous beach for a walk, until you reach the area where the palms trees have been stripped back and the 4 star resorts have been built. Here, the sea turns a rather lovely shade of oily brown and dead, bloated fish scatter the beach, along with lots of tar which coats all of our feet. But not to worry, the hotels are there with white spirit to clean it off. Shame they don’t just clean up the beach in front of their resort instead.

Harley’s picked up a really nasty chest infection which needs anti-biotics to treat it. I’m pretty certain it sleeping with the air-con on that’s making us all sickly. I’ve got a really bad throat with swollen glands and Will’s coughing up all sorts. Not sure it’s just a coincidence that Ruby, who’s on a strict 5-a-day of fruit and veg, is the only healthy one.

I’m home alone for the fourth consecutive Saturday night whilst Will has another hot date (although he swears he’s watching rugby) with a packet of Oreos and a bottle of red (plus sleeping kids). In the darkness, I sneak a second Oreo from the open packet and do a hole-in-one onto my mouth. Something tastes a bit strange. I pick up the packet, take it into the bathroom for some light and peer inside. It’s swarming with ants and I have about 200 crawling around in my mouth, some of them biting me!! Brushing my teeth at 100mph doesn’t even get rid of them all and swilling out with water doesn’t drown them. I’m bitten several times and the inside of my mouth feels like I’ve eaten 20 chillies! Does this mean that I’m now classified as a meat-eater? Urgh.

It’s still raining and I’m starting to feel like Anne Franks stuck up in this loft room, so we plan on heading further south to Nha Trang where we can hopefully do some diving at one of the islands.

Washed away in Hue

On the plane, rummaging through my bag for my camera…it’s GONE. I do NOT believe this. It’s been taken from my day pack in the airport. The only thing Will and I can figure is that, as I got out of the taxi, I took the camera out of my trouser pocket and put it in my bag, in view of about half a dozen guys who were sitting on the wall outside. When we walked in, we stood for a while just inside the door, looking at the departures board. It’s a busy airport, we’ve got 2 kids, lots of bags…..I’m gutted. Not only because it’s been stolen but because it had all our photos of Halong Bay on it which I hadn’t yet downloaded.

We’d heard great things about the historical sights to be seen in the former imperial city of Hué (former capital of Vietnam), so we were prepared to be blown away, but not washed away. First two nights, we’d booked into Asia Hotel www.asiahotel.com.vn which has won awards for best hotel in Asia. Not sure who they bribed to win that, but it was very certainly one of the best value places we’ve stayed this trip. Really lovely room, balcony, sitting area, dressing room and massive bathroom complete with an all-singing, all-dancing shower come Jacuzzi bath. It also had a couple of little extras which they had failed to mentioned to us.

We’re all fast asleep in bed, vaguely aware of the pounding rain outside, when I let out a blood-curdling scream, waking the rest of the family up. I’m not sure whether I dreamt it, but I’m pretty sure something just jumped from the top of the bed onto my arm, down onto the floor. “Oh honey, I didn’t tell you, there was a mouse in the bath earlier” says Will. I’m pretty certain this wasn’t a mouse. My arm is still red and feels scratched from claws.

Morning; mmmm, that’s a lovely gnawed banana on the side. Ooo, who wants to have some of this nibbled apple? If that was a mouse, my name’s Mickey. Open the curtains looking for fresh evidence…the streets outside our hotel are flooded. For as far as we can see, the water is a foot deep around us. I venture out in the afternoon only to report my theft at the police station and buy a new camera. Wading through muddy, knee high water is not my idea of pleasure, but it was considerably more pleasurable that my experience at the police station. After being sent from pillar to post, ignored, laughed at, sniggered over and generally made to feel like the village loony, I’m told that, since the theft happened in Hanoi, I have to go back to Hanoi to report it. I think I may have added a few choice new English words to their vocabulary as I walked away, fuming.

I’ve never experienced a serious flood before and this was a harsh introduction. The Perfume River, just one street down from our hotel, had burst its banks and some areas of the park that ran alongside were chest deep in water. A restaurant that was normally on the riverside looked as though it were actually in the river and a member of staff was swimming there in an attempt at some kind of salvage operation.

We booked a tour of some of the historical sites for the next day which we hoped would take us away from the floods but unfortunately, most of the points of interest are under water themselves, so we have to drive out of town for some time to get to dry land. First stop is a Chinese Pagoda, pretty but not very special. Next, the Tomb of Tu Duc, which is much more impressive. It’s very atmospheric and easy to imagine his 104 wives (wonder if they ever gave him permission to go out drinking for 11 hours and come home at 5.30am?) wafting around the lake and temples. The concubines, for some reason, seemed to have an area to themselves. He must have had some stamina. Tomb of Khai Dinh is next and, although the tomb itself is much more beautiful, 127 steep steps up to the courtyard tells me that this Emperor probably didn’t have much energy left for 104 wives by the time he got home.

A move to the Orchid Hotel www.orchidhotel.com to escape Ratty but the rain’s not letting up and there’s not much else to do here, so plan our escape to Hoi An and hopefully some better weather.

HANOI THE THIRD

Arriving back in Hanoi at 6pm, Will’s already twitching to get to the rugby, even though it doesn’t start for 6 hours. We get the kids back to the Paradise Hotel and Will scuttles off to Finnegan’s Irish Bar. It must have been a very long match with hours of extra time since he doesn’t stagger in until 5.30am, just as I’m getting up to deal with a sick Harley who’s been sleeping in with me. I’ve seen Will very drunk, I’ve been very drunk, but woah, I ain’t seen nothing yet!! I manage to get him undressed and streer him into (Harley’s single) bed but he’s somehow falling out of the top, bottom and sides. An hour later, I manage to drag him into the double bed where he sleeps for the next couple of hours. The kids can’t stop laughing at the snoring and keep looking at each other, then me, in total amazement before cracking up again. It’s about 8am when he tries to climb out of our third floor window whilst looking for the toilet. The hotel has just been upgraded from a 2 to a 3 star and it seems the staff are going all out to get a fourth one. They can’t be more helpful, but I’m pretty sure that babysitting drunken adults is not on their list of services so we sit it out for a while.

By about 10am, I figure it’s safe to leave him alone and I take the kids out, leaving him a note of where to meet us for lunch at 1pm, should 7 ½ hours sleep be sufficient. Of course, he’s a no-show and Ruby keeps asking me what’s wrong with daddy. I’ve managed to fob her off with the semi-truth that he’s very tired, but she’s looking at me suspiciously. We return to the room at 2.30pm to find a sleepy but considerably more sober Will who’s full of hilarious stories about last night, but we both agree that you probably had to be there….let’s see what next Saturday’s final brings.

We’re off to Hué in the morning and the hotel have given us a free taxi ride to the airport. The driver spends the entire journey blasting his horn at anything that is 20 feet or less away from him. We pull up at the airport and he turns to Will and demands “You give me tip”. “Yeah” says Will, “I’ll give you a tip. Stop bloody tooting your horn, you’ve given me a headache”.

Our bags weight just under 60kg, which is the total allowance for internal flights through Asia but we’re also carrying a day pack each and we have an additional wheelie-bag full of reading, writing and school books which we usually take onboard with us since we know it tips us over the limit. It’s all a bit hectic at check-in and our bags get checked through two different lines, so we take to chance and check in our book bag. 16 kilos! Of books! That’s more than my entire wardrobe for a year, toiletries, I-pod and speaker, handbags…Cider House Rules is going to have to go.

Halong Bay

Halong means ‘descending dragon’ and the legend has it that the bay was made as the dragon careered into the sea and thrashed it’s tail around, cutting the bay from the magnificent limestone rocks that pepper this area. Another explanation is that when the glaciers melted at the end of the last ice age, the sea level rose and hills became islands. Which doesn’t explain why the islands didn’t return to their former hill status when the water levels receded…so that really only leaves the explanation that the amazing rocky island scenery here is caused by millions of years of water erosion on the limestone. Whatever the reason for these beautiful craggy rocks scattered over the entire bay, it’s all very James Bond.

A four-hour bus journey takes us to our wooden junk, The Lagoon Explorer II. With only 4 bedrooms on board, we’re joined by two other couples. Alex and Cat, a couple of Peckham residing solicitors plus Siva and Preema, Melbourne dwelling accountant and banker respectively. OK, I’d rather have shared with a rock star, a porn star, Cameron Diaz and Angelina Jolie, but hey, they were nice enough. The boat itself is gorgeous and much of an improvement on the 18-bedroom junk Will had originally booked. For the next 24 hours, we seemed to do an awful lot of eating (and drinking, of course). Seven course lunch, ten course dinner, three course breakfast….phew. But the food was amazing, especially when you consider it was knocked up on the back of a moving boat in a 4ft x 4ft “kitchen”. There was a busy schedule to stick to; drinks, lunch, visit the floating villages, visit a cave, see the monkeys, climb 420 steps to see the view (we declined, not wanting to hold up the party with a slightly sickly Harley), visit the beach, drinks, dinner, drinks….next morning we were up for a 6.30am swim off the boat, breakfast, then a climb to huge cave complete with glowing pink penis stalactite/mite (I think this one may have gone up as well as down…), a swim, more drinks, lunch…and a bill for £75 for our drinks. They had omitted to tell us that the prices of the drinks didn’t include 10% tax and 5% service, so the wine wasn’t quite as cheap as we’d thought.

The bad thing about this beautiful place is that all the junks have to moor up in one spot for the night for safety reasons (which frankly is a bit of a surprise given the distinct lack of anything remotely safety-conscious here) which somewhat ruins the idyllic peacefulness once the boats engine cuts out. We counted almost 50 other junks moored up overnight in a pretty small area. Come morning when the junks are leaving, the sea is littered with plastic bags, polystyrene, empty bottles…Another UNESCO World Heritage Site, I can only hope that there is a curb on the number of junks allowed to visit per day before it’s ruined by thoughtless tourists, too lazy to throw their rubbish into a bin. I bet it was those yobs on the 18-bedroom junk…

Hello again Hanoi

We’ve changed hotels to the Paradise Hotel ( www.hanoiparadisehotel.com ), mostly because this one has a pool which we’re figuring will be good for cooling afternoons dips when the kids have had enough sightseeing. They come to collect us from the train station at 5am and we' drop off our bags. They’re kindly letting us check in at 8.30am so we hop onto some motorbikes and head off to the lake to watch the early morning exercise rituals performed by the local residents. I’ve been to some dodgy aerobics classes in my time, but this takes some beating. Groups of pensioners stand together, all swinging the left arm 8 times, then the right, then rubbing their cheeks, hitting their forearms….pairs of woman stand around the edge of the lake looking like they’re practising for the Bottom Wiggling Olympics, men warming up their knuckles looking like they’re about to go a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson. It’s exhausting just to watch so, after breakfast, we head back to the hotel hoping we might be able to get into our room early. No such luck, but they do let us use the pool. Small and in a windowless room, Will and I can’t be tempted but it’s the perfect remedy for two hot, tired kiddies and they gleefully hop in. Don’tchya just love it when a plan comes together?

The room is great. Huge, with a separate sitting area, fresh fruit and flowers, a welcome bottle of red wine Not at all bad. From Danang, for you wino's) and best of all, if has double glazing so the traffic noise is, finally, not an issue. Some r&r is in order before our trip to Halong Bay tomorrow. Early start, again.

Sapa

Shortly after Will discovers that he’s had one million dong (£30, but one million dong sounds far more impressive) deftly removed from his trouser pocket, we head off to Hanoi train station to we find our sleeper cabin for the 9 hour train journey to Lao Cai, where we will then board a minibus for the 1 hour journey to Sapa. It’s cosy, and very warm, but the kids are excited and Will’s gagging for some sleep, so it looks like it’s going to be a fairly easy journey. We hadn’t counted on Harley’s badly infected leg (mossie bites which have turned into water blisters and made his leg swell to twice it’s normal size) bothering him so much. We’ve got every cream and lotion with us, but sod’s law, after carrying calpol around for the last month, we’ve left it at the hotel just when we need it. Ruby sleeps like a baby, but Harley is wailing like one so the night is long and fraught.

By the time we arrive in Sapa, the kids are full of beans whilst Will and I are fit for nothing. But our spirits soar slightly as we peer out into the 6am fog and see the most beautiful scenery around us. Terraces have been cut into the sides of the mountains, some more than 100 steps high, in order to convert the steep mountainsides into level fields which can be flooded to grow rice. We’re becoming complacent about the water buffalos and waterfalls that pepper these areas, but there’s no doubt that this is a particularly pleasing up-hill journey. We have a couple of hours to kill in Sapa before our 40 minute drive out to our first hotel so take a wander around in the cool, morning mountain air. It’s only a few minutes before we’re surrounded by the local hill tribe woman all plying their wares. There’s many different tribes here, many different styles of clothing, but all of them have one thing in common, a huge smile as soon as they see our kids. Ruby’s chosen a particularly inappropriate white cotton dress to wear on this rather chilly morning, and with her pale skin and long blonde hair, she’s attracting a fan club of Japanese tourists clamouring to take a photo of ethereal-looking her. I spot the hotel I’d wanted to book (before Will had poisoned me and booked something else in my absence) and it had the most amazing view across the hills to Fansipan, Vietnam’s tallest mountain, although in this fog it’s hard to detect which is which mountain. Will’s praying that his chosen location has views to match…

A rather hairy drive through waterfalls pouring over the roads, stuck for a while behind a truck which had managed to wedge itself on a car travelling in the opposite direction, a slight detour around some cows and we eventually arrive at our destination, the Topas Ecolodge ( www.topas-eco-lodge.com ). I think Will’s trying to earn some brownie points back (as my school reports used to say, must try harder) by booking us here. Yes, it was expensive, but it has the most stunning views across the hills. Too knackered to do much else, I flop into bed for a snooze and spend most of the rest of the afternoon there whilst Will somehow manages to find a second wind and takes Ruby off for a much overdue homework session.

As I go to put on my new silk dress for dinner, we discover that it’s been left on the train. I’m not pointing any fingers, but...

Up bright and early, we’re off for a hike through the paddies and come across a group of people from the Red Dao tribe harvesting their rice. They wave us down and we watch them beating the rice out by hand, babies strapped to their backs. Looks like pretty backbreaking work to me and it gives a new appreciation for the simple bowls of rice that accompany most meals.

A transfer back to Sapa where we’re booked into the best hotel in town, the Victoria ( www.victoriahotels-asia.com ). View? Some roofs. I show unusual restrain and don’t mention it, but Will’s already clocked it and is looking at me sheepishly. It’s raining and foggy so we take ourselves off to the pool for the afternoon before a short stroll back into town. Ruby makes friends with a 15 year old girl called Ha who is Black H’mong. She lives 12km from her family but spends her days in Sapa trying to sell bracelets to the tourists and sleeping here, only seeing her family very occasionally. Initially, I think this is a truly dreadful way for her to live, but she seems happy and healthy and I later learn that most children in this area don’t go to school anyway since there’s often too much work to be done in the fields, or else they have no way or getting to school, especially when the roads flood. It still seems sad though. She doesn’t have anything we want to buy, but hands Ruby half a dozen of her cloth bracelets as a gift. Dinner at the Red Dragon Pub where we order the kids a roast pork dinner with all the trimmings, of which Ruby eats a couple of slices of pork. I can’t stand any more mealtimes trying to convince her to eat something so we hit upon a plan. Knowing that she will always eat bread and rice, we agree that, once she’s eaten 5 portions of fruit and/or veg a day, she can eat whatever she likes. Or eat nothing at all, if she's really determined to look like Lena Zavaroni.

The Victoria Hotel slightly redeems itself at breakfast with a spread fit for a king, or even princess Ruby. She fills herself up on bananas, pineapple, cucumber, carrots and lemon juice and then, realising she’s done her 5, inexplicably tucks into bacon, sausage and toast. Fingers crossed…

We walk it all off with a 3 ½ hour walk up Ham Rong (Dragon’s Jaw Hill). Half way back down, we’re enveloped in thick fog swirling up the mountain, mixed with dense clouds swirling round our heads. We’ve still got a couple of hours to kill before we leave for the train back to Hanoi, so visit the market and then sit on the balcony of a lovely little restaurant with a view in both directions of the main street. A bottle of white wine remains nicely chilled in this temperature and we can’t help but think how truly alpine this village feels. The area around here is known as the Tonkinese Alps and as we watch people make their way down the hill in their rain macs and hiking boots, back to the warmth of their hotel rooms, we’re reminded of many a skiing holiday.

Ruby’s ecstatically happy as we run into Ha again, even more so when she hands her even more fabric bracelets and then a laminated photo of herself, taken in a studio. This time I buy a beautiful hand-embroidered cushion cover from her and she takes our email address (not sure if it’s the Sapa equivalent of autograph collecting or if she does actually have access to a computer) and then hands Ruby a "silver" bracelet. I’m wondering if this astute little business woman has taken me for a ride on the cushion cover but then, since I only paid £1, I somehow doubt it. Many hugs and kisses later, Ruby’s reluctant to leave her new friend but is clutching her gifts tightly.

Hello Hanoi

Good Morning Vietnam! When Robin Williams uttered those immortal words, he clearly hadn’t been rudely awoken at 6am by the Voice of Vietnam coming loudly through the bedroom window, via a loudspeaker or by the sound of a thousand motorbikes tooting their horns every 2 ½ seconds. In fact, I doubt very much that he was anywhere near Hanoi at all.

We arrived at 6.15pm to total darkness and torrential rain, but at least our car was there to whisk us into town. Sorry, did I say whisk? I meant weave, haphazardly through the traffic, horn beeping at anything and nothing. Arriving safely at the hotel was our collective concern, although my personal, as yet unvoiced concern was that, from our initial introduction to Hanoi, it seemed far too much like autumnal London.

Of course, when we arrive at the Hoa Linh hotel, our pre-booked room is not available, as either the previous occupant had cancelled a planned trip due to the typhoon or the room was flooded, depending on which member of staff we asked. So we all squeeze into an alternate, tiny room at the back for one night, but at only $25 per night, we’re not complaining too much.

The buildings in this Old Quarter of town are called tube houses as they are very narrow but up to 50m deep, which is bought home to us the very next morning when we move into our family room at the front of the hotel. It’s about 35ft long and at $1 per foot, it seems like a bargain compared to last night’s pad.

Donning our waterproofs, we step outside the hotel and try to fathom a way to cross the road through the mass of motorbikes. Following the lead of the locals, we take our lives and those of the children quite literally in our hands and simply step into the road, walking in a straight line, at a steady pace, to the other side. I don’t know why the chicken crossed the road, but we’re only risking it because we have to get to the other side. We quickly learn that bikes weave around you, cars slow down and buses do neither. A few near misses, but no fatalities.

Down at Hoan Kiem Lake, we cross the red, wooden Huc (Sunbeam) bridge to a small island where the Ngoc Son Temple stands, up to the Hanoi Opera House (closed) and stop off at Café Au Lac for a reviving mid-morning lemon juice. A short walk to Vietnam History Museum (closes in 10 minutes for a 2 hour lunch break) and make it in one piece across the road to the Military History Museum for a quick 25 minute scoot round before it too closes for lunch.

Beaten but by no means defeated, we hop into cyclos and are sedately pedalled through the throngs of traffic to St Joseph’s cathedral (closed for a 2 hour lunch break). Deciding that we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em and take a two-hour lunch break at Mediterraneo, washed down with a nice bottle of chilled white. Ruby and I opt for a spot of retail therapy whilst the boys head off to look at some planes.

Dinner on the roof of the rather lovely Café des Arts ( www.cafedesarts.com ), accompanied by a rather fine Pouilly Fume and some rather delicious French food left us all in a rather good mood.

Me and my big mouth. Now we know why the front bedrooms are such good value. The traffic, and therefore the constant beeping doesn’t stop all night, only quietening slightly between 2-5am, whereupon it starts up again. I wake, for the fifth time that night/morning in a bad mood and with a thumping headache. This time, it’s nothing to do with the wine and everything to do with the noise. Without hearing or seeing this traffic, you really wouldn’t believe it.
On the recommendation of Dave Bracey, we’re headed for the offices of Handspan (www.handspan.com) to book our next trip but I almost faint on the way (a particularly virulent strain of Asian Bottom Flu has had me doubled over all morning) so, after escorting me home, Will’s heads back to Handspan alone. While the budget keeper’s away, Will can play, so he books our trip to Sapa with two night’s accommodation in the two most expensive hotels possible, and makes a provisional booking for our trip to Halong Bay. Back to Handspan in the evening where it takes Will a good hour to firm up the Halong Bay trip (note; he’d already paid for the Sapa trip, so there’s nothing to be undone there…) and we have dinner at the attached vegetarian Tamarind Café. Yummy.

Saturday morning, we’re off to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. Despite his explicit request to be cremated, his body has been preserved for the last 38 years by Russia’s finest embalmers and is housed in a huge air-conditioned, marble building. Usually. Upon arrival, we discover that every October/November, his body is flown back to Russia for a bit of touching up. Which reminds me of all the City bankers I know who fly to Russia for a bit of touching up, except I don’t think Uncle Ho pays.

We get to see the One Pillar Pagoda, (the outside of) the Presidential Palace, Ho’s house in the grounds and then his newer, bamboo house on stilts. Feeling invigorated by the lack of motorbikes around this unusually peaceful area, we take the plunge and hop onto one of the xe ôm (motorbike taxis), with Harley wedged between the driver and I and Ruby squished up with Will and driver. Strange how just 2 days ago we could hardly cross the road and yet today we’re popping the kids onto motorbikes without a crash helmet between them. We head to the B52 Museum, which isn’t really a museum at all but a collection of bombed pieces of B52s, which you can walk all over, alongside pristine Vietnamese anti-aircraft missiles and a MiG-21, and then a quick zip off to Pain et Vino for lunch. You would think, wouldn’t you, that a restaurant with Vino as a major part of its name would employ staff who know the difference between white and red wine? Not so. Three times we ordered a bottle of white wine from the list of a dozen or so (vs. a list of about 50 red wines), only to be told that it was not in stock and would we like to try this bottle of red instead. Finally, exasperated, Will heads off to the cellar (a bamboo rack by the front door) and selects a bottle of white wine from the huge choice of 3. It arrives, room temperature and $13 more expensive than he’s been told…

In the mood for a bit of corporal punishment, we head off to the Hoa Lo prison (better known as the Hanoi Hilton) where the French had originally held Vietnamese and then, later the US POWs were incarcerated during the Vietnamese War. We put the kids in shackles and locked them in a cell to give them a taste of it and were very tempted to leave them there for a few hours, but their screams were too loud…There was a fair bit of torture that had taken place here and we had to skip over a few of the exhibits for fear of giving Ruby nightmares.

It certainly didn’t seem to affect her appetite too much as she asked to go back to Café des Arts where she inspected the menu and then asked for T-Bone steak. I offered to share a salmon filet with her but she was far more interested in snaffling Will’s rare Chateaubriand. At least she ate something, which makes a change as she’s now known as Goldilocks since everything we try to get her to eat is either too spicy, too tough, too hot, too cold or even, in the case of pineapple, too sweet…. No such worries with Harley who eats anything and everything you put in front of him. Will’s in a hurry to get out of there as it’s the England vs. S. Africa rugby match showing at Finnegan’s. 8pm start, he arrives back to the hotel at 4.30am. Apparently, he’d also stayed to watch France beat New Zealand. Yeah, right.
I’m keeping track and am looking forward to lots of nights out with the girls when we get to Oz.

Sunday 9.30am, we’re off to see the Water Puppet Show. A culturally unique experience. Puppets, water, music, singing. The kids are loving it, Will is nursing a hangover and a smug look. And then I tell him that, if England are to play France next Saturday in the semi-finals, he’s going to miss it since we’ll be on a boat in Halong Bay. Smug look gone.

We’re off to Sapa tonight on the overnight train, leaving at 8pm, so we have some time to kill. A Vietnamese style 2 hour lunch at tapas bar La Salsa, a bit of shopping (gorgeous turquoise silk dress for me, 70% off, reduced to $10) and back for a bit of lover watching at Hoan Kiem Lake. Some students stop to talk to us (actually, they just want to sell us some books or postcards, but still, it’s nice to chat to them) and we ask how they would spend 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon, whilst waiting for a train. Proving once again that local info is a thousand times better than a guidebook, they recommend we take a 20-minute taxi ride to West Lake (not mentioned at all in our book). A 61,000 dong fare gets us to a gorgeous lake where we take out 2 swan shaped pedalos. We’re more ugly ducklings than beautiful swans as we let the kids take control of steering and constantly bump into each other. Sunset drinks precede a 24,000 dong taxi ride back to Handspan (ummm, do you think we were ripped off earlier…), and then Will….yup, you guessed it…. spends 1½ hours changing our trip to Halong Bay to leave one day earlier at a cost of just $130 more. He’s seriously out of brownie points.