The 3 of us were up early and flew from Hanoi via Vietair to Da Nang and got a taxi to Hoi An. Hoi An was lovely with a tailor shop for any style desired, a buzzing market with the best food and 3000 Dong Bia Hoi (locally brewed beer without preservatives which means it needs to be sold within 24hours)...what more can one ask from a place?! A lovely river runs through it and has some French style to be seen in the architecture. Stayed in a more upmarket hotel t...

This river of the Dragon, one of the seven wonders of the world, was a 3 and half hours bumpy minibus ride from Hanoi and a paradise of sorts. Megan, Helen and I joined a tour group on the Halong Party boat, which was chosen as it was not as raucous as the castaway tours. We saw the "Surprise cave" (that's the original name of the cave) which was huge and had loads of stalactites and stalagmites with great views too. We went to the local beach to climb umteen am...

Our bus from Sapa arrived at 4:30 in Hanoi. We got a taxi to Central Backpackers, which was closed when we got there, but fortunately there was a guy to open. We got our bags and moved it to Hanoi backpackers. We met Megan later when she was awake at the hostel. Helen another English girl we me. Paulette Megan and I went for a walk around the lake area. Meg went to the Museum while the rest of us went for another foot massage, as always was awesome. Very sadly...

Took the bus from Hanoi, we changed busses in Ca Cai at 5am and got another bus to Sapa at 6am, arrived at Sappa at 7am. The shuttle bus that was supposed to take us to the Sapa Summit Hotel never pitched. This meant we walked all the way up the mountain to the Hotel. Obviously we were less than impressed. The hotel itself though was gorgeous with the best views. We received our itinerary and had the best buffet breakfast with fantastic views of the surrounding m...

We made our way to Luang Prabang's airport at 2:30pm, we found a local place about 10min walk from the airport where we had the greatest lunch. Our flight took off at 5:10pm. The taxi ride from Hanoi airport revealed just how crazy this place is. Cars and scooters weaving interchangeably between lanes with more hooting I've heard in my and many other peoples lifetimes combined I'm sure. Hanoi means in the middle of the river. There used to be a large river arou...