Well, after 20 months in Beautiful Langkawi, we finally decided to undo the chains to the marina and move on to Phuket, Thailand. We had a great time meeting new people and adding a new member to the family. Welcome- Tammy, 10year old shih-Tzu but we will sadly miss our friends.
The journey was slow and enjoyable (most of the time). 1st day out we set the anchor 25mls north to Ko Taranto . The water was that inviting I had a quick swim. We did go ashore with Tammy for a quick look.
From there we took a long 67mls motor sail to Ko Lanta. This is where we spent the next few days waiting for the weather to come good again. This place is great, got shops, restaurants etc. Onto Chalong Bay, Phuket. We didn't like this place took 2 hrs to check in and couldn't find anything we were after (internet). We spent only 1 night here the next night we went just around the corner to a nice quiet bay.
The main reason to come to Phuket was to re-rig the boat and a few other things. The hard stand we chose is north of the island called Phuket Premier Boat Lifters. The lift itself was uneventful and the yard is clean and safe. Only one problem- its 50km to Phuket town and 30mins to the nearest shopping centre. Which is a hassle when you got to buy things for the boat.
Now up 2 weeks we have removed the mast and the new luff track is installed. At $30 a day we have hired 2 workers to sand the antifouling off which is nearly done ready for me to paint it. The weather has not been too good, most of the time it rains so we work very quickly when it doesn't.
Stay tuned.......

Although we did spend 6 days in Bangkok and Pattaya Thailand i will concentrate on Vietnam as most people are familiar with Thailand as a holiday destination, where as Vietnam lately has been touted as the new 'in ' holiday spot for the more adventurous. How you will view Vietnam after your visit will have a lot to do with your budget ,however there are some positive and negative experiences that will be shared no matter what your budget.
The way we wanted to explore Vietnam or any country for that matter is to try and scratch the surface and see not only the country but the real people behind the country. The down side of this is sometimes you experience things that can put a dampener on your visit ,Vietnam knows how to deliver this.
I dont want to put anyone off visting but it is different to the other Asian countries we have visited . It has a lot to offer but dont expect a 5 star country,and it does'nt try to be. It's a country that is fast trying to alienate itself from its communist past and get into the modern world and its mostly succeeding ,there is building going on everywhere ,new high rises ,hotels ,bridges . But traveling on the roads ,even the main north/south arterial road that joins Saigon to Hanoi in the north is a painfull frustrating experience ,as the road conditions are attroctious,with holes on main roads big enough to swallow buses as we can attest to when the back end of our bus found one of these holes and bottomed out in it and nearly snapped the back axle, we eventually, after a lot of tooing and froing got out of it, but not with out a lot panicky screaming from some of the buses occupants.
A review of Vietnam could go on forever but in the interests of not boring anyone i will just give a brief what i feel are the pluses and negatives of the place keeping in mind others who visit might have a totally different view point.

PLUSES
Futa Bus lines,
A fairly new company set up in the last 12 yrs or so from just owning a couple of cars and a bus to a very large company with hundreds of bright orange large modern Hyhundai buses ,both seating and sleeper buses with good infrastructure along its routes for food stops and skilled drivers which is a must to cope with the roads and the often suicidal traffic found on the roads ,we saw many crashes ,some serious. On that note do not even think about driving yourself in this country unless you have a death wish, not only do they drive on the right side of the road as in America, foreigners are not permitted to drive without a Vietnamese drivers License.

History,
There is no shortage of this in Vietnam, both recent and ancient. Most obvious to the tourist in the south is recent history, namely the Vietnam war or as the Vietnamese call it the American war, the illegal war, it is very interesting but does have a down side which i will mention later.
The north of the country tends to concentrate more on ancient history and there is plenty of it to satisfy any budding historian, such as 1500 y/o temple ruins ,ancient mongal war relics from 1000yrs ago and the wars with the French more recently.
Hotels,
We stayed in 5 hotels while there, ranging from 4.5 star to 3 star ,all represented excellent value for money, were clean, well presented, although many of the staff struggle to understand basic english. The most expensive hotel was $90 p/n while the cheapest was only $30p/n and even this one was only 1 year old, was equiped with a/c ,palsma tv,mini bar,bath robes and slippers ,wi fi complete with your own computer in the room ,free bottled water every day ,toothbrushes and paste was supplied in every hotel and replaced every day. And the list of freebies goes on and on i often wondered how some these places make any money.
Asia Rooms
This is the online booking company we have used right through Asia to book hotel rooms ,they are excellent to deal with and efficient even when you book a room with just 1 days notice, never had an issue with giving them credit card details online.

People.
Its not until you get outside the facade of the tourist side of any country that you really get to know the people, this is where people on guided tours tend to miss the real culture and heart beat of a country. Get out of your hotel ,walk the small side streets ,it's quite safe, eat at the small roadside restaurants ,go to the little farming villages and you'll find a very warm genuine people who seem to hold no outward grudges of what was done to them by western powers. It is said that not one family did not loose at least one relative during the war. They are a very forgiving people who just want to get on with their lives. Its a pity that so few speak english ,if you really want to get the most out of Vietnam try and learn some basics of their language ,they would really appreciate your efforts and it would make your experience there all the more richer.

Country
A few facts on what the American government did to this country, they dropped 15million tonnes of bombs, they sprayed 72million ltrs of agent orange destroying around 20,000 sq km of farm land and natural jungle, they bulldozed the jungle, they sprayed it with napalm and set fire to it and the people ,mostly innocent farm workers. American and Australian Politicians should hang there heads in shame.
Despite these facts ,Vietnam ,the country side seems to have mended itself quite well ,it is a trully beautifull country ,from the cool inland mountainous regions,which can snow at certain times of the year to simply stunning coastal scenery. just look outside your train window and you'll see a 300m shear drop down to a rocky palm covered beach and the dozens of squid fishing boats with lights blazing in the oily calm tropical waters of the South China Sea.

Negatives.
Its a shame to be negative about any country especially such a beautiful country as Vietnam, but fore warned is fore armed, if you know what you are going face before hand you can be mentally prepared for it. Vietnam has a population of around 100million, both Saigon and Hanoi have over 10million people each so dont expect a nice quiet city, it is noisy ,it is crowded, motor bikes out number cars 10 to 1 and they race around like a thousand angry bees cought in glass jar. Some hotels even have double glazing on the windows to try and keep the never ending noise out. If you dont like the sound of this go out into the country. its still motorbike infested but on a slightly less scale.

Scams
this is where Vietnam starts to let the tourist down and overpowers all the positives of the country. From the moment you walk out of the front doors of your nice hotel you are like a lamb to the slaughter and these's wolves who make a living out of tourists are relentless and they will, after a while will mentally wear you down to the point that you no longer want to be there. The tourists themselves need to take responsibility for creating this scourge. Because things are so cheap here they dont complain when taxi drivers charge tourists 400% more for a trip than a local, they speed up there meters so they jump from 10,000 dong to 90,000 dong in the space of 1 second and you only traveled a mtr, and if you do have the courage to question them about it your accused of being a tight ass rich tourist and a big shouting match will ensure. The streets are crawling with pedal cars owners that will try and extort every last penny from your wallet and when you refuse politely that you just want to walk instead of being pedalled around by them you are abused behind your back. During a 30min walk this can happen 10 times, it gets very tiring.
You get hungry so you go to a restuarant for lunch ,you sit down and the first thing that is given to you a glass of beer even if it is 10 am in the morning and if you say no no they give you a very dejected sad confused look and reluctantly take it away and pour it back into the tub it came from ready to be given to the next tourist. Well! once you got rid of the beer then come the street hawkers who are allowed free reign inside the resturant, one after another who refuse to move until you have bought some junky made in China watch or sunglasses or condoms ,the only way to get rid of them is to be rude and turn your back to them.
On one occaision i went out the front of the hotel and this young man fell to his hands and knees got out a tooth brush with some sort of paste on it and proceeded to scrub my brand new leather sandals, i said no no only new, no need, he said yes yes ,i said No NO , He said YES YES . I could see being polite to this guy wasnt going to work so i just started to walk off, well this guy was not going to let go, he followed me on his hands and knees still scrubing my sandals for a good 15 mtrs before finaly giving up after he was loosing to much skin of his knees and it was getting embarressing for me ,he didnt care.

I went for a quick walk to the shop and came back 10min later ,turned the corner to the hotel and there he was again waiting for me armed with his tooth brush ready for another attack on my sandals, i ran past him and into the security of my hotel..If you dont want to be bothered by these people wear thongs.
FOOD
One of the things you most look forward to when visiting a new country is trying the local delicacies. The national food in Vietnam is Pho, pronounced Fer, what a disappointment this was ,we had it on numerous occiasions but it never got any better, it is basically a watery stock with noodles ,lettuce thrown on top and a couple of thin slices of beef,pork or chicken, it was bland and unfullfilling,it seemed if you wanted the real exotic foods of Vietnam was to go to up class eateries and pay equal or more than Australian prices for the privelige ,We didnt come here for that. You dont have to do that in other asian countries. Michelle did differ with me on this as she quite liked Pho ,maybe i was to used to the full spicey flavours of Malaysia.



Wildlife
Well sorry but there is no wildlife, there used to be but its all gone what they didnt eat they shot or speared. there used to be tigers and elephants and numerous other animals but now the jungles just seem to be void of anything except the occasional small bird, so if you want a wildlife safari go to the zoo or Africa. Although if you appreciate rats ,the city seems to be overun by them, running in and out of the drains by the hundreds,which made me wonder what i was eating in my Pho.

Hotels.
The hotels themselves were great, but you need to realize that 80% of the tourists in Vietnam are Chinese and as such the hotels cater for there tastes not western tastes. So what you say, well chinese like to sleep on very hard surfaces so the beds in every hotel were like concrete slabs, the first time i sat on one i nearly broke my back. If your used to a nice comfy western Sealy posturepedic ,bring a blowup matress or take sleeping tablets as we did.
All the hotels supply Buffet style breakfasts ,however unless you like chinese food for brekky you will go hungry, for example for breakfast in one hotel we were the only westerners of about 80 people in the dining room ,where the food on offer was Fish soup,noodles,spring rolls,green salad,fried rice,boiled vegies,dim sims ,dessert cakes, you get the idea, it looked like the menu out a chinese restuarant. And no black tea for breaky ,only Artichoke tea, which was surprisingly good and of course the coffee Michelle says is better then most.

SUMMARY.
Vietnam is a country like no other it will present many challenges but can be rewarding. Its is not a place you will come away from without some strong opinions, on the country, the people and what has been inflicted on them.
Go with an open mind ,knowing its not perfect and you should enjoy yourself.

On to Hanoi by train this time,have a look in photo gallery to see how this went.
Photo here shows cruise boats at Halong Bay 170ks from Hanoi

Away from the chilly highlands of Da Lat we took an overnight sleeper bus to 35 degree heat of Da Nang on the coast.
See new pics in gallery

American Tank and heavy lift helicopter
More photos in gallery