Hanoi We have spent the past five days in Hanoi, a city of 4 million of which we are sure that 3.9 million have a motorbike as the place is wall to wall motorbikes with less road rules than Bali.During our time here we have been able to relax and take in the sights i.e. the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (unfortunately the body of HCM was away in Russia getting a touch up), One Pillar Pagoda, Museum of Ethnology, the Lakes and the Old Quarter. We also enjoyed eating out...

Hanoi On Sunday afternoon (20 September) we headed back to Hanoi, this time with 15 of us plus a stroller and a child's car seat (for a family with 2 kids plus a 6month old!) all couped up in our minibus - on a day reaching 36C!!!We found a welcome café to park ourselves for 4 hours in Hanoi before heading to the station for the overnight sleeper train up to Sapa. Sapa Sapa is an old hill station, high in the mountains some 400kms north west of Hanoi.After a...

Hanoi We flew from Hue to Hanoi and stayed overnight in the Old Quarter of the city which is extremely busy with narrow streets and many motorbikes.Any pavement area is full of either parked motorbikes or food vendors who are actually cooking their wares amongst patrons sitting on very small plastic stools at low tables and drinking the local beer.It was impossible to walk anywhere except on the road and we had to accept the constant hooting of horns from motorb...

Hue Our journey by train to Hue was quite an interesting experience.The 2 ½ hour trip is supposed to be one of the best in the country as it goes through mountain tunnels and follows the coast.Unfortunately in our carriage we had locals who had already been on the train for many hours (most probably 12-14 hours from Ho Chi Min City) so all they wanted to do was sleep.Hence curtains on most windows were closed, blocking our view, and the lady in the seat behind ...

Hoi An We flew from Nha Trang up to Danang on Wednesday (9 September).This took an hour and then we took a taxi down to the UNESCO World Heritage listed town of Hoi An.Several friends have told us how this is their favourite part of Vietnam and now we know why.It is a small town of some 80,000 people and its central area is closed to cars.Restaurants, bars and shops (including some 500 tailors!) are housed in buildings dating back to the early 19th century, with...