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 ...

I've learnt something not very surprising about myself on this trip - lack of sleep and long bus rides makes me grumpy!! I arrived in HCMC, Saigon, whatever you want to call it in the pouring rain. I immediately got scammed by a taxi driver who charged me an extortionate amount to take me basically round the corner and drop me off by a non-existent guesthouse. It was on a meter - just one of those meters that is set to go up stupidly fast! First error. I had ...