When they finally allowed me to get into my bunk on the night train, I clambered up, wedged my bag safely behind my legs, drew my curtain and settled down for a bed time read with some Carla Bruni. In a matter of minutes I was fast asleep, still very much recovering from the last few sleepless nights. The train staff had been hassling me to make a decision about breakfast, claiming I could only have it if I ordered it now and the train WOULD be late, arriving ...

As usual, determined not to spend long on my own, I met a girl - Marianne - at Hanoi airport to chat too. It turned out, I was much more experienced at travelling than her, as she had been studying at the uni in Saigon and had just gone up to visit friends in Hanoi. We stuck together, before and after the plane, when we arrived at Bangkok. Thailand is obviously a little concerned about its image to tourists as we were all handed bags full of lychees as we arri...

Gerry was really short of time in Hanoi, so we decided to go straight to Halong bay from the night bus, which worked perfectly. We were dropped off at Sinh Cafe, booked the trip - to leave in an hour - and walked into the Old Quarter to find some breakfast. We were confronted by an old Vietnamese man in the cafe who tried to speak French to me - probably because I said "Merci" when he directed me in French to the toilet! Luckily Gerry spoke French so...

Hue was supposed to be a quick and not very exciting stop, enforced upon us by the bus company we were travelling with, but we actually had loads of fun! The bus from Hoi An was only about 4 hours, strangely stopping at a few odd places along the way. When we finally got off the bus, we accepted the first lift to a decent sounding hotel we came across, which was with a guy called Cuba, great name for a Socialist country! We wedged my rucksack on his bike and G...

Even arriving at 6am Hoi An was hot. It got hotter as we decided to ignore all motorbikes offering us lifts and walk into town - it didn't look that far! After huffing and puffing our way through the beautiful old town we reached the river, where we finally decided to allow someone to help us - in the form of a crazy old man wearing a British (I think it was Celtic)football shirt. He helpfully reminded us about the Champions league final - on tomorrow - mental ...