What a relief to be back in Hanoi after the Halong Bay ordeal. The long ride back just capped it off and when we got off the bus, everyone just sort of slinked off making only feeble attempts to say goodbye. We found our new hotel, Rising Dragon, checked in and crashed onto the bed...so happy to be in a comfortable room and free to do anything we wanted including nothing at all. And that's about what we did...nothing. It was awesome. When we got hungry we went an...

Wow!! Where to begin...it's a bit of a saga so we'll do our best to summarize: The Good: Halong Bay is beautiful! Our cabin on the boat was OK. We met some super cool people on the trip. We had a sweet sing along session with 2 guitars, a couple Aussies, a Kiwi, 4 Swedes and a Peruvian dude. We did a pretty cool hike to a view point in Cat Ba National Park. One of the be-friended was the Peruvian dude; Marco. We wrapped a bit in Spanish, which was fun. Th...

We were set! The best seats on the sleeper bus, well fed, snacks in reserve, fully charged iPad, sleep aids ready to roll...life was looking good. And life was good...at first. We played cards and hung out as the first few hours of the journey whizzed by the window. G and I tucked into a repeat viewing of "Money Ball" on the iPad and became so engrossed in the movie that when we made the first pitstop of the trip I found myself afflicted with maybe the stronges...

The bus to Hue was blissfully uneventful. It was a quick, easy, painless 3 hours by bus and we were dropped in the town centre. We grabbed an overpriced cab that drove us about 7 minutes in the time we could've walked it, but he was pleasant enough so we didn't really care. Now, we were slightly nervous checking into what would be our accommodation for the next two nights. The price per night for a private room with private bathroom was $9USD, which also includ...

We won't bore you with the gory details of the 22 hour bus ride to Hoi An except for a few notable bits... We were both mildly physically assaulted by the bus workers while boarding and getting seated. Apparently we were supposed to take off our shoes, but we didn't get the memo and the dude smacked me on the ass twice, yelled at me in Vietnamese and then gestured at me and then his head as if to say: "you god damned idiot". Gina faired no better with the lady ...