Today we took a taxi to the nearby town of Danang to catch a flight to Ho Chi Minh City. For once we ended up with a cautious taxi driver which in some ways was great but also meant that the 30 minute journey to the airport took almost an hour. We still had time to check in and stood patiently behind the one person in the queue. As we waited a monk walked right up to the desk and waited. We agreed that being a monk we should respect the traditions and allow him t...

There are several ways to make the long journey to Hue from Hanoi and we decided to take the overnight train. Late in the afternoon we took a taxi through the busy and somewhat scary narrow streets of Hanoi and arrived safely at the train station. We could see the platform but everyone was held in the waiting room and not allowed onto the platform. Suddenly the doors opened and the crowd started to squeeze its way onto the platform. We found our carriage easily a...

We touched down to leaden grey skies and tarmac at Hanoi. Despite being dry season it was cool and wet. After waiting for ages to pick up our bags and go through immigration we went to meet our pre-arranged taxi to get to our guesthouse. There are numerous warnings in the Lonely Planet about getting airport taxis with dodgy meters or simply taking you to the wrong hotel to try and get a commission, so we weren't taking any chances. Except our driver wasn't th...