We had heard a few horror stories about the junk boats on Halong bay, so upon booking our trip we wanted to be sure we was picking a descent tour. Our hostel had three different boats to choose from which all looked highly photoshop'd in the brochures that we was given to look through, however we had looked at a couple of other agencies beforehand and this seemed quite common. We had read tour reviews from the hostel and it seemed like everyone who had booked thr...

The 29th April had finally arrived and checking out of Hotel Marlin in Cartagena we began the long journey to Vietnam. Packed up with some sandwiches, crisps and biscuits we was all set and made the short 15 minute taxi ride to the airport. Four flights via Panama, Los Angeles and Taipei we would eventually be landing in Vietnam two days later on the 1st May, crossing the date line. The first flight to Panama was only an hour long and went very quickly. As the p...

Coming to an end of our time in South America we headed back to Cartagena for our last few days. We had saved a couple of activities left for this time so we still had lots to look forward to even though we had already explored a great deal. Checking back into Hotel Marlin we was once again comfortable in our nice air-conditioned room and buying lots of alcohol from the supermarket we barricaded ourselves in for the rest of the night to savour the coldness. The f...

We began our tour of the Carribean coast with the first stop, a town called Santa Marta. There wasn't much information on this town in the guide book however we found a nice hostel with a swimming pool and decided to relax for a couple of days. Taking a day trip into Santa Marta we were done exploring the town within 45 minutes. A town of very little interest other than shopping, and because Jonathan has told me I cannot load him with one more rucksack filled w...

Cartagena Part 1: Cartagena has the whole Pirates of the Caribbean feel; A beautiful city dipped thoroughly in history which looks like it has been pulled out of a fairy tale with it's cobbled streets, plazas and flowery covered buildings with Rapunzal type balconies! The historic city is surrounded by a great stone wall with canons inset, which dates back to the 15 hundreds, a time when the city found wealth and became under threat from invading army's and pirat...