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Day 52: Pom Coong (VN) – Phu Yen (VN). “I may have peeked too soon!”, I exclaimed to Karen, anxiously”. Karen said nothing, but continued to stare at the ceiling of our bedroom of the little guest house in the small town Vietnamese mountain town of of Phu Yen. Of course I was referring to my travel writing.

Whilst there were many advantages to keeping a daily log of our travels, 'real-time' writing didn't really give us the time to reflect on the overall experience of our adventure. And therein lay my current dilemma: We had enthused about Russia, we had warmed to Mongolia, we had been captivated by China – but then we had arrived in Vietnam – and this place absolutely knocked our socks off!

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't that we thought any less of our fabulous experiences in the previous countries, and we wouldn't have changed anything about our itinerary. It was just that by the time we arrived in Vietnam, I had already exhausted all of the superlatives available in my relatively limited vocabulary and so I had nothing else to give. I had no way to describe Vietnam. You'll all just have to come here and take a look for yourselves.

The motorcycles were adding further to our enjoyment of this beutiful country and the mountain scenery that lay before us - in my opinion, the most involving form of mechanised transport available. For on a motorcycle you don't just pass through the countryside, you are part of it. All five senses are acutely tuned to your environment, allowing you to experience so much more than travelling by car or bus. And the further we got into the mountains, the more like celebrities we felt as whole communities came out to wish us well, each village dressed according to their ethic origin. “We have 58 hill tribes in these mountains”, Khanh said with a great deal of pride. He went on to enquire “How many tribes do you have in England?”. “Err...Just the one, really”, Karen replied with a smile.