Glad to once again be out of the hustle and bustle of the city and even better than that we are heading to the beach!!! The bus journey was a five hours along the twisty costal roads the scenery was absolutely stunning, to the extent that I’m not sure my photography will do it justice! Our first ‘happy house’ (SE Asian word for toilet – I think my happy house/rave dance every time it is mentioned may be wearing thin!) stop was a bar on a stretch of stun...

The journey south to Hue didn't start well, an 11 hour train journey on the crappiest of crap sleeper trains.I had been so used to the Chinese sleeper trains which are fairly modern, they have good food cars and hostess trolleys with fresh fruit, snacks and beer every half an hour or so.Because I was used to the Chinese trains and our guide didn't think to tell us that there would be no food for sale on the train I didn't bring anything with me.So for the first 3...

We caught a coach out to Halong Bay, we then took one of the dozens of tour boats that lined the dock. Luckily for us ours was a private boat so we didn’t have to cram on to one of the shuttle buses ferrying people across the bay. Still our boat followed the rest of the boats out of the bay and towards the 1,969 islands, we dropped anchor half way out to Grotte des Merveilles and had lunch which was pretty cool, seafood platter and one of my favorite Vietname...

After the coach journey from hell, I was happy to cross the boarder in to Vietnam and see a Ford Transit mini bus waiting to take us to our hotwl in Sapa. After winding up through some steep mountain passes at normal speeds, admitedly there was some blind corner overtaking, but it all felt quite sedate in comparison to our previous driver! Anyway we arrived in Sapa a small village nesstled in the northern mountains of Vietnam. The temperature was hovering about 2...

Kunming After the experience in at the home stay in Xijing I have never been so glad to get on an overnight train!I was completely shattered so opted to hit the sack at 8:30 - very rock 'n' roll!I think Polly was pleased I agreed to swap beds as she was further down the carriage on her own away from everybody else.If truth be told I was glad for the peace and quiet!!! We arrived in Kumming early morning and opted to get a few hours sleep before we explored to c...