TAKE THE LAST TRAIN TO ..... Well that's it. I've survived my last overnight train trip and I am back in the big city. I spent last night in a four person cabin with three Thai students from Bangkok. Never one to miss an opportunity to converse with today's 'yoof' we got talking about our travels and how I'd come from China etc. "That's amazing," proclaimed the girl in the group. "I wish I had more time to travel. Are you retired?" I kid you not she actually said to me ARE YOU RETIRED!!!!!!! Now I know the fluorescent lighting on the train was non too flattering and my scraped back hair and glasses probably weren't doing me any favors but I had bunches and a backpack for god sake - did she really think I was 65 !!! I guess it's a pretty fitting story to end on and it is indeed time for me to retire (from this trip anyway). Thanks to Andy (Big Man), Nuala (Irish bird) and Antonio (Big Nose, Fattibelly, Cradle snatcher etc) for keeping me company. As always my next trip is never far away and I'm taking applications for traveling companions already. Till then, thanks for logging on and keeping tabs on me, it's been blogging great. Love always Vic xx

YOU BET I DID ..... Right, I already know that Miche is not going to accept this and as a result I have failed my challenge however I decided to go out in a blaze of glory. OK so he may be off duty and he may be half cut but he's a man in uniform and he let me mount him. What more can a girl ask for!!!

WE ARE THE CHAMIONS .... Right lads, who wants a football shirt - going cheap!!

GRANDPAPA, GRANDPAPA .....I've decided to embrace my Heidi like tendencies and have come to live with some mountain goats. As I am due home in a couple of days I thought it was about time I proved that I have not spent the last seven weeks in a bar and have in fact been living in a hilltribe village in the very North of Vietnam. OK so I've only been here three days but that still counts as culture right? Despite raining most of the time I have had a fantastic time and as I started this trip with a trek in China, I decided to end the trip with a trek in Vietnam. The scenery is stunning and the trekking has been fab but the best part has been the homestay. I got to stay in a house with FIVE generations of the same family. When a crumpled old lady shuffled her way in to the kitchen to make my dinner I felt awful and told the translator I wasn't hungry. Much to my relief he said she wasn't cooking - her DAD was. Yes, I am ashamed to admit that I was waited on hand and foot by a 96 year-old man!! He was so hunched over he was practically dragging his knuckles off the floor. The whole family were totally amazing and incredibly welcoming. If I hadn't been woken up at 4am by a herd of water buffalo I could have been sorely tempted to stay!

LASSIE & CHIPS ..... Thank the lord my eating challenge took place in Beijing and not Vietnam, as much as the Yak intestines were a bit hard to swallow I think the delicacy around here would have left me reaching for a bucket. I knew dog was on the menu in Vietnam but today was the first time that I actually saw a cooked one for sale in the market. Suffice to say I didn't partake in a woof woof burger!

BYE, BYE BIG NOSE .... A big thanks to Antonio for being a fab traveling buddy over the last two weeks even though he did make me feel like the man in our (platonic) relationship. In addition to wearing sandals, taking a cooking course and drinking cocktails, the plastic Italian took to carrying a man bag!! There are far too may embarrassing piccies to choose from but I shall leave you with a typical shot from a night out with Antonio. Yes that's a coconut in a basket and luckily for him the camera cuts out the sandals he's wearing under the table and the man bag that contained the money he used to pay for his Pina Coloda. Bye, bye Big Nose - the Copacabana club's gonna miss ya xx

MOUNTING CONCERN.... It is with heavy heart that I have to report I am failing in my last challenge. It is hard enough finding a soldier in Vietnam let alone asking one to give you a piggyback. And even more alarming than all of this is that fact that I have had to mount Antonio (more than once!) in a bid to demonstrate what I need. One young guy in a uniform nearly wet himself when big nose crouched down and I leapt on top of him. The young man in question did a sterling job of taking our picture but nearly dropped my camera when I tried to jump on him instead. Worse still is that Antonio has now abandoned me and returned to the UK as he supposedly has a 'proper job' and I don't (since when was surfin the internet all day considered a proper job?) So I am flying solo again and sorely lacking in a piggyback demonstration partner. Fear not, I still have a week to go so all is not lost. I am however heading north to do some trekking over the next few days and I have a feeling that there will be even less soldiers lurking around the minority hilltribes in Sapa. It looks like my last opportunity is going to be the airport and I don't fancy my chances of getting an airport official to put down his x-ray panel long enough to let me mount him! Oh well, a girl can only ask, right?

POOH STICKS .... Imagine my delight to walk into a shop yesterday and find a packet of brown chocolate tubes named after a pretty unappetising part of the body! It may be in danger of knocking 'Krapp' toilet paper off the top spot of my fave products of all time. For the record, they tasted great. Although the addition of a few nutty bits every now and then did cause me slight cause for concern!

CHALLENGE UPDATE ....In a bid to get Princess Miche to cough up the cash for my photo developing I have once again turned my attention back to the challenge. As you may remember I was asked to drive a vietnamese motorbike wearing a chinaman's hat. So here I am on a vietnamese motorbike (with the vietnamese owner no less), wearing a chinaman's hat (which Nuala can verify came from China). I have two witnesses that I actually drove the thing (a whole 2 yards) but as my hat kept falling off this is the best piccie I've got. As I failed the 'pants challenge' in China (Miche is nit-picking over the word 'got'. As I bought the said pants instead of 'getting' them then apparently it doesn't count), it means that I still have one more to do to win the bet. As there are only two options left and I can no longer get my hands on a Chinese soldier, can I change the wording to Vietnamese soldier pleasie. Then all I have to do is get one to give me a piggy back - easy!!

PIGS IN BASKETS..... Forget pigs in blankets, the Vietnamese have gone one further. Canape anyone??

98...99...100 - COMING READY OR NOT! If travelling with Big Nose gets too much for me I think I've found the perfect hiding place!

A FEW KODAK MOMENTS FROM MY TRIP!

SUITS YOU SIR ...... Greetings from Brent Cross, sorry I mean Hoi An. Yes, we have arrived in shoppers paradise and thankfully the rain has stopped. We've got a boat trip arranged for tomorrow so I'm quite hopeful that i'll finally get to see a wee bit of this fine country and in the meantime I have been doing my bit to support the under-aged sweat shops of Vietnam. Hoi An may be famed for it's stunning coastline, golden beaches, pagodas and bridges but the main reason most tourists come here is to shop. Every other store here sells made to order clothes and they can make absolutely anything. I refused point blank to do any shopping yesterday but crumbled after I saw everyone elses goodies last night. I popped out for breakfast this morning and ended up ordering FOUR dresses!! It is unbelievable they actually have the current NEXT catalogue and you just pick what you want. They measure you there and then and the clothes are ready the same day. I'm pretty sure that the back streets here must be full of dimly lit factories powered by 7-year-old girls shoulder-to-shoulder on cranky old sewing machines churning out 14 dresses an hour. With this information in mind I wrestled with my conscious for about a nano second until the smiley lady in the shop drapped me in fantastic gold satin material and the deal was done. I may be going straight to hell for failure to report blatant human rights violations, but hey, at least I'll look good going there!!

HORNY LITTLE DEVIL... Yes that's right, Big Nose has arrived and just in time for Halloween! To celebrate his arrival we decided to work our way through the entire cocktail menu at a local bar - suffice to say it got messy! I managed to make it home at about 6.30am the next day minus my shoes and a toe ring. Antonio however has surpassed himself by becoming an object of desire in a little love triangle already. (Apparently if you can see past the fat belly and big nose he's actually quite a catch - who knew!) After trying (and failing) to woo one member of our tour group on the first night, he quickly moved his attentions on to victim number two and hit gold. He has managed to avoid both of the ladies in questions all day today so I can't wait till we all meet up tonight to see if the cow poo hits the fan - fantastic! As for sight seeing I would love to update you on the joys of Nha Trang but as it is the rainy season our boat trip today was cancelled (hence the blow out last night). There was a severe weather warning yesterday that a Cyclone was heading right for us but thankfully it seems to have got a bit lost and is on it's way to China instead which is great news for me but not so great for the Chinese.

P IS FOR PERFECTION ..... After the stresses and strains of travelling in China (any excuse eh!) the Irish one and I arrived in Vietnam and headed straight off for some R&R. This is where we had the joy of spending the last three nights. It was just heaven. So Nuala has left me and I am flying solo for a bit. I'm heading down to Ho Chi Minh tomorrow and then Big Nose (sorry I mean Antonio) arrives in a couple of days for us to spend two weeks heading back up to Hanoi. As Princess miche has already poo-pooed one of my challenge attempts, I still have two to go so as soon as my partner in crime arrives I'll get back on the case. Till then have a good weekend everyone. Love from Vietnam xxx

VIRTUAL BIRTHDAY CARD.... As I am a rubbish granddaughter and forgot to send a card in time, this is a special Blogger Birthday card for my Nan. HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANNY! I'll also kill lots of birds with one blogging stone as I also have three other Birthday's this weekend (please don't expect cards!) Happy Birthday to Angela, Sophie & Guy. I'll be thinking of you all xx

TONIGHT MATTHEW I'M GOING TO BE ...... You'd have thought we'd learnt our lesson from the last hangover flight but oh no, on our last night in China we hit the bottle again with avengence! After a sophisticated evening of Acrobatics and Peking Duck, the night took a turn for the worse when we happened upon a kareoke bar opposite our hotel. Having spotted Malibu for the first time in about a week, I relished the chance to have a big girls blouse of a drink instead of the rocket fuel & coke i'd had at dinner. Now I'm not sure at what point in the night I decided that I was bored of going to the bar but in my slightly tipsy state I decided it was a really good idea to ask the barman to sell me a bottle of vodka. It took about a nano-second to convince Nuala that my plan was the work of pure genius and a deep dig in our communal purse sealed the deal.

It was shortly after this transaction that I decided I can sing!! Having refused point blank to take part in the Kareoke till this point in the night, I suddenly heard the opening bars to "Hey Big Spender" and rushed to the stage. Now anyone who has heard me sing knows that I sound marginally better than a strangled cat however I really don't have the type of voice that you want to take solo into a kareoke bar!! Despite asking the whole room to 'spend a little time with me' I, not suprisingly, didn't get any offers - possibly because I giggled through most of it and accidentally fell off the stage during the instrumental break. My sincere apologies must go out to Ms Shirley Bassey and the entire clientele of the Happy Bar & Grill in Beijing last Saturday!

Apologies also to Nuala for entrusting me to buy our last meal in China. In my slightly hangover state I spent our last bit of cash at the airport on a hot tuna & gherkin sandwich and a packet of paprika crisps - the hangover raged on!!

THE VERY, VERY, VERY GOOD WALL.... No trip to China would be complete without the obligatory wall shots so here are a couple of mine (yes that is me dangling out of the window!)