Blimey I hear you cry - Nikki suggesting a plane journey rather than a bus, this travelling lark has gone to her head. So by plane it was - leaving Hue on the 13th Feb a journey of 1 hour to the old capitol Hanoi. We were ready to move, Hue although an interesting place seemed to lose some of its attraction in the dull damp atmosphere and I for one was ready to move North. The prospect of visiting Halong Bay (UESCO site) and then onto Sapa and the mountain of Fan...

Having settled in to our lovely hotel after the bike ride we turned to more pressing matters - FOOD! The new year holiday and remoteness of the places we had visited over the past 4 days had meant that a diet of noodle soup and occassional rice and pork dishes was all that could be found. For those of you that know me (Ads!) well I am not good when I am hungry and was anxious to eat anything apart from soup and rice. However there were ominous rumblings coming f...

The final leg of this trip saw us heading down from the mountains to the coast and Hoi An. Rising early to the sound of children singing nursey rhymes - deep Joy. This being a ghost town and New Year we couldnt find breakfast so had strong coffee to keep us going - it didnt matter though as the whole experience had been amazing. Heading higher still we stopped time after time to take picture after picture the landscape was incredible. Again we often seemed to be...

The 3rd day and it was getting easier although getting on the bike for the less agile amongst us was still causing a problem. Less kilometres today after the punishment of yesterday. Leaving Kontum we headed for the minority village of the "rong" people here life was still as it was many years ago. The well had only being completed 5 years ago here the children were pulling up bucket after bucket. Next to this was the big Community house a bit like a town hall he...

We woke early to prepare our bottoms for another few k's (well 270km to be precise!) ahead - the longest day to come, aaah! To see the beautiful lake upon us from our balcony to start made it all worth while followed by hot Pho (noodle soup!) for breakfast (still can't get my head around no Weetabix!), a big New Years Hug from our guides and the sound of New Year Parties still going on over the lake.... We were both really looking forward to what would be i...