Day 16 Early morning we left for our 3 day Halong Bay tour (a beautiful bay in Northern Vietnam with giant limestone cliffs and islands everywhere) on a very cramped 3 1/2 hour minibus ride! Sven instantly made friends with an Aussie called Mitchell and his Chinese girlfriend Li-Li, while I sat next to a great Northern Irish couple, who told me all there travel stories on the way to Halong Bay :)Arriving in Halong Bay we boarded our wooden sailing junk and had a...

Day 12 This evening we boarded our overnight train to the hilltop town of Sapa which borders China for some hill-tribe trekking. Not so much of a good night sleep with the bumpiest train ride I have been on but we got there in the end 10 hours later (looks alot closer on the map!) Day 13 Arriving at La Cao train station we got our transfer up to the hilltop town of Sapa! Weather not so good, we are still to see the sun hence the lack of tans in our photos! As ...

Day 10 GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!! (ok so I have so been waiting to say that haa haa!) Early Air Asia flight from Bangkok to Hanoi (3 flights in jusnt over a week for me now thats good!) we arrived in Hanoi around 8.30am A bit cooler than Bangkok and not humid we found it quite a pleasant change! Our driver picked us up and navigated his way to our hostel (Little Hanoi Hostel, what a gem and suuuch friendly staff!) inbetween MANIC traffic! On the way we almost had ...

Day 9 Made our way to the Grand Palace but when we got there we were told we couldnt come in unless we were wearing long trousers so we got on a tuk tuk first time what an exhilirating and interesting experience tearing through Bangkok traffic! We went to Chinatown which sold a load of rubbish so we hopped on another tuk tuk and went down to the Chao Praya river where we took the tourist boat up the river. Later in the afternoon we took a taxi ride from hell ...

Day 7 Wow the humidity in Bangkok is killer! today we took a half day tour to a nearby floating market just outside Bangkok which was great! we all loaded into a little wooden boat which went up and down the canals and we bought all types of exotic fruit off the boat stalls. Today was a festival of light called Loi Krathong so it was a very cool atmosphere with even a band playing on the one boat. we saw our first Asian elephant at the market so cute a small one...