The rumours were true. There's no smoke without fire, right? It was cold and wet in Hanoi. Something that we're of course used to from home, but not something that we were particularly expecting in late March in Vietnam. The word on the vine is that the weather all over South East Asia has been going crazy since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami though, so maybe that has something to do with it - Northern Vietnam should be experiencing a lovely Spring around no...

Vietnam's train system is meant to be pretty up there - something that I don't doubt considering the calibre of their buses. However they can be quite pricey, so we decided to only catch the train on what is supposedly the most scenic part of Vietnamese train track: the three hour journey from Danang, a taxi ride away from Hoi An, to Hue. And wow, it really was scenic. The train curved around the mountainous landscape for the better part of an hour, looking down ...

Keen to miss out Nha Trang, a beach resort notorious for muggings and other crimes, we decided to try and get somewhat off of the beaten track and go to a town about 5 hours North of Nha Trang, called Qui Nhon. We arrived late at night, but the next day when we got ourselves together to grab some food, we were rewarded with a 'Definitely off of the Beaten Track' award. There were no menus in English at all, and as we walked the streets the adults stared and the c...

I've come to the conclusion that Vietnam is an odd country. It's very westernized since the Vietnam War, but Thailand is still considered to be more Western and richer. However despite it seeming the cheapest country so far, we actually had a POWER SHOWER in Saigon (never underestimate or take for granted this technological genius), toilets you can flush the toilet paper down (something that took a surprisingly long time to get back in the habit of) and far super...

It is such a good feeling when the natives try to majorly rip you off within the first few hours of being in a new country. Our bus pulled up on the side of a busy road rather than a bus station and instantly taxis were being offered to us from every direction. Asking the taxi driver to show us where we were on the map, he pointed off the page. The place we wanted to go, with the majority of backpacker accommodation, was central on the page. He claimed it would c...