The next day we set off for a 2 night boat trip around Ha Long Bay. Ha long bay is a beautiful bay with over 2000 islands that jut out steeply from the water. A very beautiful place, and of course full of tourists! Everyone buys package to go on a wooden boat called a 'junk' (and yes some of them really are), some are just day trips and others are overnight boats with bedrooms on board. We splashed out and got a fairly good one, glad we did but did mean we had lo...

After Sa Pa we had the day in Hanoi again, did a bit of sight seeing. Went to the mausoleum and said hello to Ho Chi Mihn, the queue was massive! They rush you through very quickly though. We took at cyclo (man on a bike with the carriage in front) there, it was pretty crazy! A nice way to see the sights though but just a bit edgy with the crazy traffic around us. We then did a walk past the flag tower and to the old jail. Was a pretty interesting place to see bu...

Well the overnight train was fun... Not! The trains are so old they are so bumpy, we both didn't sleep much at all! Anyway made it safely to Sa pa where we were taken to our hotel, we had a shower in the grottiest room ever (quite concerned what our room would be like when we check in later) then met our tour guide for the next few days. Her name was May, she was 17 years old and was a black h'mong person from a village close by. She wore traditional dress and ha...

Its friday night, nannas 97th birthday!!! unfortunately i didn't manage to get her on the phone. Today was a bitsty day, had a looong sleep in, then went and sorted out bookings for ha long bay and sa pa. unfortunately we couldn't get train tickets to sa pa for tomorrow (it's an overnight train) so we ended up booking for tonight. Lucky for us the hotel has been really accommodating (pardon the pun!) and letting us swap nights for later. Found an awesome place fo...

After a whirlwind past few weeks and an amazing wedding day- here we are! Can't believe we actually got the house packed up and work finished amongst getting married- we really should have left more time! We were exhausted but excited as we set off, unlike our last big adventure our plane actually left when it was supposed to this time! We both managed to sleep on the plane and at the airport in Singapore, we were lucky enough to find a relaxing retreat area at ...