Greetings from the historic town of Hoi An, the unofficial home of custom made clothing. Our bus terminated seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It was mid-afternoon, that kind of sticky hot that makes every slight movement an effort, and there was not a lot in sight structurally besides what we were led to believe was the towns bus station (a desk with a bored looking man sat behind it in an empty rectangular room around the size of a garage, outside of which sa...

Hello and welcome to Hue on the central coast of Vietnam. So, after departing Hanoi and heading to the airport for the short flight to Hue (we decided to fly as the price was only fractionally more than the train and 4 hours less in duration) we found ourselves climbing onboard what appeared at first glance to be a private jet sent purely for the two of us. To paint the picture it was small to say the least. There was no mobile staircase driven up to the side c...

Once more, Xin Chao and greetings from the northern hills of Sapa, Vietnam. So, after making ourselves (even more) beautiful following our return from the Halong Bay trip, we found ourselves boarding the 9pm sleeper train from Hanoi to Lao Cai (which is 40 minutes or so down the hill from Sapa), due to arrive at a little before 6am. The train itself was actually not too bad at all, with four to a cabin, bunk bed either side. We were sharing with a couple from H...

Xin chao and welcome back to northern Vietnam. So on Monday morning (26/10) we stepped onto the bus outside the front door of the Hanoi Guesthouse and set off on the (roughly) three hour journey north-east to Halong Bay. The bus we were travelling on was advertised as ‘a modern tourist bus’. It turned out to be a Ford Transit minivan packed to the rafters with people and luggage. If health and safety from home had a look at it they would have been excused f...

Xin chao (‘hello’ for the un-informed out there) and welcome to ‘Nam! So, following our fourth flight in 4 days we arrived in Vietnams capital city, Hanoi, in the early hours of the morning on the 24/10. As organised as ever we had booked ourselves into the Hanoi Guesthouse, which was situated in the old quarter of the city and had page after page of positive reviews. The place also offered a pickup from the airport (for a price) which was good news. As w...