Three weeks in three paragraphs

Ok a quick rundown of the last couple of weeks. I am going to write more at one point, but the problems include:
1) Dodgy computers won't let me post photos and I can't tell a decent story without some visual imagery.
2) Spending lots of time on boats, or hikes, or at deserted beaches without computers
3) Spending even more time lazing on beaches, deserted or otherwise, to bother finding a computer.
4) Too hot to bother thinking, let alone typing
5) Too busy thinking up lists of reasons why I haven't blogged.

Since Hanoi we visited the Perfume Pagoda (and let me tell you - with a busload of pommy tourists trudging up a mountain in the most intense heat and humidity I've every experienced, all soaking with sweat, there was nothing in the aroma to remind me of perfume). Three days on a tour of the unbelievably breathtaking Halong Bay. Fighting with more tour guides at the former border of North and South Vietnam. Whipping around the old Imperial City of Hue on a convoy of 8 motorbikes.

Going absolutely bananas with buying clothes in the gorgeous little city of Hoi An which only has about two hundred tailor stores in it's half a dozen streets. I was just finishing my buffet brekky on the first day and told Sarah I'd meet her in the tailor's shop around the corner in 5 minutes. By the time I arrived she'd ordered about 15 items of clothing. So of course I then had to catch up... I'm not much of a shopper but I have to say that getting to choose the fabrics, describe the design and have it made to exactly fit your proportions within a few hours for next to no money is a hell of a lot of fun.

Then four days on the absolute paradise of Jungle Beach - a place where for 15 bucks a day you get accommodation in a cabana with three loosley-thatched palm-frond walls around a four poster mosquito-net covered bed about 3 feet from the beach. Plus all the delicious food you can eat. On an amazing beach, miles away from the nearest town so there's literally the 8 or 10 people staying in the place with you on this enormous deserted expanse of white sand and turquoise water. As soon as you look at the beach a lad runs out at top speed with a shade structure to put up over you. And if you dare to wander too close to the main eating area at a non-meal time, one of the lovely staff will grab you and thrust an ice-cold fresh lemonade and a plate of cut banana, mango and dragonfruit into your hands. There is no money - you lock your valuables away and run a tab in an old exercise book for the only things you don't get for free: beer and ciggies. I gotta get some photos of this place on the blog, it's amazing. I'm surprised we ever left. More on it later.