We caught an overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai for our 3 day treking tour in Sapa. We shared our cabin with two Malaysian guys who were headed to China to go trekking - we hadn't realised how close we would be to China as Lao Cai is the border town! We beat the language barrier and managed to teach them how to play our versions of cards, before they told us that in their games 2 is the highest card and 3 the lowest! They must have been pretty confused but it ...

After a night train back from Sapa we got a very crazy taxi ride back to our hotel. Really wished I hadn't sat in the front! After watching Hanoi wake up for about an hour (5-6am) our hotel fortunately opened up giving us a chance to go back to bed! After getting up we then had the nerve racking experience of waiting for the BBC sport website to load to find out the Rugby result - fortunately it was the correct one - now planning next weekend around being in-fron...

We were glad to get away from the chaos of the city for our 3 day trip to Halong Bay, which is about 3 hours from Hanoi. We hadn't realised quite how touristy it would be though, apparently about 2000 tourists a day! We arried to a harbour packed full of junks. Ours turned out to be pretty plush with air con cabins, sun deck and good food! Unfortunately the weather was pretty cloudy/misty/air pollution so we didnt see Halong Bay at its best but it was nice to rel...

After the awesome result in the rugby we spent the night in the airport and caught a flight to Hanoi in Vietnam. Lots and lots of mopeds and other traffic with seemingly no rules is the first thing we noticed! Red lights seem not to be compulsary and zebra crossings a waste of paint! Crossing the road is actually simpler than it first looks - you basically just walk across the road and rely on the mopeds to steer round you!! After trying about 10 cash machines ...

Awesome result in the rugby!! Looking forward to seeing all the Australian connections!