Having whizzed our way down Vietnam we are now in Nha Trang and heading to Saigon on a night bus this evening. We had a great New Year on the boat, and luckily met a really great bunch of people to party with. The Halong Bay trip in itself, however, wasn't great - there were constant arguments between our tour guide and the guests because of the horrendous organisation. Luckily we hadn't paid anywhere near what others on the trip had, and none of the problems really affected us - we were just stuck in the middle which resulted in ourselves and Ainslie (a Kiwi PE teacher we met) having to spend new year on the boat, but that turned out well!!

When we finally and gladly returned to Hanoi (without drowning or even punching our annoying tour guide, despite his attempts to sing at us) we hopped on a night train to Hue and spent the next day looking at the old town ruins, which were really impressive. Then straight on the next morning to Hoi An - which is shoppers heaven! Pretty much every shop is a tailors, and they have bargain prices for custom made suits and jackets. Unfortunately, Pug and I were lured in and got some things made! Whoopsie! But a suit for 20 quid you can't say no! We also visited the Cham ruins (yes, yet more ruins! Our pics must be boring you) at My Son, just outside Hoi An. It was interesting to see how they were built and that they were still standing but there wasn't much to see so it didn't take us long to get around them.

Again we moved straight on that evening down to Nha Trang (another night bus), where we have spent the last couple of days recovering - eating (the crab is good!), sleeping and chilling on the beach. It's quite a nice little town, although a bit seedy! There's lots of diving but as we are a bit rushed for time (our visas run out on the 14th) we thought we might save diving for Cambodia or Thailand. Plus the weather still isn't great - we haven't really seen the sun since we landed in Vietnam! It was nice to have some rain though - felt homely!

Onto Saigon tonight, we'll probably get in about 4.30 in the morning which will be delightful!

Hope everyone is well and had a great new year. xx