"Life is like a box of chocolates..."

Have you ever looked at a person and thought that they resembled someone famous? I had that feeling, but strangely, the person I was looking at was me! I was sat in a barber's as the hairdresser hacked off great chunks of my locks, trying to think who I reminded me of.

It had already been a long day - we'd started it on Koh Rong and had just got off the boat back to Sihanoukville. I was quite smug as we had boarded our vessel, earlier on the island; we'd spent the morning swimming and exploring, but I'd got out of the water early enough to dry out completely. I didn't have to rummage around in my luggage, like the others, searching for dry shorts to change into. They say that 'pride comes before a fall' and that prophecy was fulfilled when I chose my seat on the boat - as we moved away from the dock and out of the calm waters of the harbour, we were greeted by slightly bigger waves, whipped up by the winds. Don't get me wrong, you shouldn't be picturing a scene from A Perfect Storm - these were not giant waves, especially in comparison to the storm surges battering North Devon recently, but the combination of choppy waters and strong winds conspired against me. Every time the boat's bow ploughed into a wave it sent a wall of spray into the air, unfortunately the wind was blowing directly into my face and this meant that a large majority of the South China Sea was deposited in my lap. Luckily for the other guys on the boat, I acted as a breaker for them - so by the time we'd reached Sihanoukville, two hours later, I was drenched from head to toe whilst the others disembarked relatively dry.

Our next task was to find a bed for the night, which was easier said than done. We found a few possible places, but each was full of pesky backpackers and had no vacancies. In the end I decided that getting my haircut was a more pressing matter and left Nick and Steve to find accommodation whilst I located a barber.

I had a few establishments to choose from, eventually I settled for the one with the smallest queue. I watched as a man got what I could only describe as a modern day rats tail, and then it was my turn. As I took my place I asked for 'a number two all over' - I'd love to grow my hair long, but it tends to grow up rather than down also having short hair, I've discovered, makes life a lot easier in the mornings. My barber began the process, but once he'd done the sides he stopped and basically refused to do the rest, explaining that it wouldn't look good. Slightly offended, but willing to bow down to the expert's opinion, I agreed to let him continue. This is when I began to think I resembled a celebrity, but I couldn't decide who. Brad Pitt? Ryan Gosling? Maybe, but that's not who I was thinking of. Hmm...

After my haircut I wandered back to the the boys, who were where I'd left them. We found a hotel and made our way to the promisingly named 'Golden Lion Hotel'. It sounded like a grand place. It wasn't. On the plus side, it had three beds; unfortunately those three beds, we would discover the next morning, were full of bed bugs.

I still wasn't particularly happy with the haircut that had been forced upon me. Nick and Steve reassured me that they liked it, whilst also using the phrase 'you look like you've joined the Marines!' First they giveth, then they taketh away. But they were on to something with the military reference. Maybe it was an actor from a war film? Matt Damon in Green Zone? George Clooney in Three Kings? No, still not there.

We decided to watch a film. Nick, as had become customary on this trip, fell asleep after ten minutes. He had already tried and failed to watch 'Argo' four times; 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' turned out to be no different and snores soon eminated from the other side of the room providing a backing track for Steve and I to watch the film.

The next day, Steve went to pick up our visas from the Vietnam embassy, whilst Nick and I booked some bus tickets across the border to Ho Chi Minh City. The man we bought them explained that the coach would leave that afternoon and arrive in the south Vietnamese city just before midnight. This was great news as Nick wasn't feeling very well at all and we could book a hotel in Ho Chi Minh and relax for a day to give him a chance to recover.

To cut a long story short, though, the man who sold us our tickets was lying. We didn't arrive in Ho Chi Minh City until four-thirty the next morning. In the meantime we had endured a few hours on board a minibus with leather seats and no air-conditioning and then a very shouty man crammed us onto the back seat of a 'sleeper bus' - which didn't live up to its name. We were relieved to arrive at our hotel and collapse on to our bug-free beds.

I had only briefly closed my eyes on the bus and almost immediately woken myself up by snoring! Being the middle of the night, I hadn't even got to appreciate the passing countryside of Vietnam. But we'd made it: 'Nam - the place we'd watched so many movies about...

And that's when I realised who I looked like...

Forrest Gump.