The 14-hour train journey from Hue to Hanoi passed pretty quickly as I ploughed through the snacks I'd bought from the supermarket in Hue - cheese and crackers, olives, cashew nuts and a half-bottle of Vietnam's finest red wine Vang Dalat. We were staying in Hanoi's Old Town, which is a maze of little streets all crammed with identikit tiny shops and restaurants - I couldn't get my bearings in this place at all because every street looked the same to me (not hel...

From Hanoi we took a boat trip around Halong Bay, had lunch on the boat and then sunned ourselves on the top deck, admiring the other boats in the bay and the fantastic scenery of limestone karsts rising up from the water. We stopped at some caves to explore inside - a path has been cut through for tourists and the stalactites and stalagmites were dramatically illuminated with coloured lights. We stayed overnight on Cat Ba Island, a very chilled out place where ...

The drive from Hoi An to Hue went through the incredibly picturesque Hai Van Pass - every turn looked like a postcard picture scene with the green mountains dropping down to the white beaches and crystal blue sea. We stopped for lunch overlooking the deserted Lang Co beach - so beautiful. Hue is a nice town on the banks of the Perfume River (Song Huong) - the town offers pretty views across the river with mountains in the backdrop and enough restaurants, bars an...

I was very excited to discover that our hotel in Hoi An had a swimming pool - it was especially welcome since the weather was the hottest I have ever experienced in my life! We were located about half-way between the Cua Dai beach and Hoi An Old Town, which meant a lot of walking, which meant a lot of sweating and - because the town is very sandy and dusty and we were plastered in sun cream - meant we were constantly coated in dirt! The Old Town backs onto the T...

Nha Trang is by the sea and I didn't stray far from the path between my hotel and the beach - this part of town was beautiful, relaxed, colourful and packed with cheap restaurants and bars. Everything looked very new, clean and tidy. The beach was glorious and not too busy because it was low season. Even the hawkers there were relatively few, more friendly and less peristent and than I had experienced elsewhere. On the beach it was possible to do paragliding and ...