Friday, 23rd October Our already long 18 hour bus journey turned into 24 hours when the bus broke down 1 1/2 hours outside Hanoi, then seemed to stop every half an hour until we eventually got to Hue. We had obviously missed the connecting bus but were pleased when the next one was a sleeper. We got into Hoi An at 6pm and went straight to the Hoa Binh hotel, quick shower and unpack then off to my birthday restaurant which was lovely, flood waters back up over th...

Packed up and met up with Jules, went for a beer then the Green Tangerine for a posh lunch, Jules' friend Lisa is going out with Will Hall from Uplands so have now met someone who knows someone we know, wondered how long it would take. Jules' other friend Sheryl lives in Singapore and said we could go and stay which we might well do. Got the night bus back to Hoi An.

Monday, 19th October Arrived in Hanoi to sunshine, booked Halong Bay for tomorrow and stayed at Bamboo. Found the famous Fannys Ice-Cream place which was really good. Tuesday, 20th October We're going to Halong Bay at last. The bus took 4 hours to get there, we then had to wait another half an hour before we got our tickets by which time everyone from our bus was getting a little hot tempered. We all sat down for luch as soon as we were on, we sat with Jordan ...

Thursday 15th October Sleeper bus was quite funny, quite a few backpackers on it a few of which like me thought the middle row of beds was a good bet, not so, I spent most of the night trying not to fall into the aisle. Got our first motorbike taxi when we arrived and Jules was in the reception when we got to the hotel. Had a much needed shower and Tom had a dip in the pool, very nice. I went with Jules to get some clothes made so hopefully they'll be ready tomo...

Didn't sleep too well on the plane but when you're woken up at 4am to eat it kind of throws your sleep out a bit. Hong Kong Airport was fantastic and just what we needed, Starbucks and Burger King(recon we'll be off the curries for a while), then a wonder around the kind of shops we'd forgotten existed. Really good food on the flight to Hanoi and we got through with no problems with our visas which is always a relief. Got a really nice hotel and got a minibus for...