The arrival in Dalat was after a short journey from Mui Ne and we found ourselves accommodation very close to the town centre. Dalat is one of the inland city's home to a population of just under 200 000. There is a limited amount of things that one can do as a tourist, but with the cooler temperatures and the old town setting, we did a lot of walking down the winding streets.

We only had one full day in town, but made it a very full one. We went to the town's lake for a late breakfast which lead to my discovery of the beef stew. An delicious mix of meaty broth with soft beef and some veggies - mainly carrots served with a crispy baguette. This is would be my main diet over the next week and a half. We went on to visit what is known as the "Crazy House". This was initially a personal project taken-on by a woman who is a Vietnamese ex-president's daughter and studied architecture overseas. The exterior looks almost as though it's a very old tree trunk with some areas looking more cave-like. The interior has narrow, winding corridors, with an array of wacky animal themed rooms like the "termite" room and the "kangaroo" room. We went-on from there to the old palace which used to belong the king. Built in the 70's it now open to tourists, but is relatively unimpressive and not worth elaborating on much further. Later on, we booked ourselves onto a bus heading to Nha Trang for some beaching.

Nha Trang again is a large city with a very beautiful beach and makes a very nice place to stop-off for some lazing on the beach and some good food at the large backpacker district of town. We spent more time than average searching for accommodation and picked-up a really good bargain at a hotel that brought-down their rate by over 50%. We spent our first 3 days lazing on the beach and reading our books while we ate a lot of western food at the pubs and restaurants close by. Not by any means a cultural experience, but nice to do for a change. The last 2 days were very rainy, so a lot of our time was spent indoors and in restaurants playing cards. The sky cleared-up on our last night and we went for a delicious set meal with wine and the works to celebrate Rome having been finally signed-off for her articles (a 2 year process finally with a result!).

We left for Hoi An the next day on our first night bus since South America and although it was not in the same comfort league, it was very good value. That meant that we arrived in town at just after 6.30 in the morning. Not once before had the process of looking for accommodation been so difficult! Every place that we went to look at was either 1) closed, 2) full or 3) 3 times the price of what we're used to paying. The reason for town being so full (we later found out) was that there was an international choir festival over the period that we were staying. Eventually I decided to ask one of the local motorbike riders to take me to some places that he knew would be more suited to us. Eventually after 2 hours of looking around, we found some adequate place to stay. We were tired, but still decided to go walk around the town to acquaint ourselves with the town.

Hoi An is known as the town with a thousand tailors and when walking down the streets, its really not far off at all from that. Every second shop is a tailor, all of them displaying their creations at the entrance with thousands of different colours and fabrics brightening-up the streets. We both wanted to get some clothing made while we were there. Rome wanted a pair of work pants and skirt and I wanted a 2 piece suit. We went around looking at the different qualities and fabrics and finally found a place where we both felt comfortable to get both items made. Measuring took place within 10min of negotiations and we were on our way 15min after that. We were told to be back at 18.00 that evening for our first fitting already! That gave us the whole day to explore the area.

Hoi An is a town that's been a centre for commerce as a trading port since around 200 BC. The old town was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO as a well-preserved example of a South-east Asian trading port of the 15th to 19th centuries, with buildings that display a unique blend of local and foreign influences. The buildings are all painted in a pale yellow colour with black moss growing in many areas and with the bright clothing on sale and the delicious smelling soups, breads and noodle dishes wafting in from the restaurants, we both felt that it was one of the nicest towns we've walked around since the start of our trip. The river lies on the outside of the tourist district and there are many red lanterns and artworks surrounding each side of the river banks.

Due to us both enjoying our cooking, we've been wanting to do a cooking course since the start of our travels in South East Asia. We did some researching online when we were still in Nha Trang and decided to take a look at a restaurant called "Gioan" where there we found many good reviews. We went to take a look and were impressed with what we saw, so we booked ourselves in for a course the next day and chose our 4 dishes from their menu. We decided on steamed spring rolls, duck in orange sauce, chicken in clay pot and our favourite Pho Bo (the beefy soup). We went out for a delicious lunch after that and then went for another walk. We got to the tailor at 6 and were amazed at what they had done in such a short time. Rome's skirt was perfect and the suit and pants were made, but needed only minor adjustments. They would be ready for pick-up at 10am the next day. IE. Within 24 hours of us having made our order.

We got free bicycle rental with our accommodation and so we took them out for the day on day 2. Hoi An is a coastal town and to our surprise has a spectacular beach located 6km from the old city (where we were staying). We rode around the town and clothing markets and took a leisurely and scenic bicycle ride to the beach. We parked off our bicycles and went for a walk on the beach. We'd only packed for the ride, but not for the beach, but because of how much we were enjoying it, we went and got ourselves some new swimwear (which we needed in a any case) and heading for some sun and swimming. We spent our time on the beach until it was time to go back for our cooking course.

We met our cook, Hanh and found all our fresh ingredients set-out on the table. For the next hour and a half we were cutting, stirring, frying, boiling, steaming and finally eating. Each meal was more delicious than the next! The steamed spring rolls were fresh, moist an d chewy while the Pho Bo was amazing! We had marinated the beef before putting it into the soup and so it made every bite incredible. The chicken in the clay pot was sweet and savoury and the duck in orange sauce was a soft, delicate and juicy. By the end of the meal we were stuffed and took away our recipe books with smiles on our faces. Dinner wasn't necessary for that night so so did some more walking around town and ended up deciding to go out for a drink and play some pool. We met a Cambodian tour guide Aki and an English tourist Emma and played a couple games together. After a couple to many drinks, we headed back to the hotel for bed.

We spent another day on the beach the next day and soaked up some sun before heading back to town. The rest of the day and night was again spent walking and eating delicious meals. We left the town the next afternoon and headed for Hue.

Hue was unfortunately not all that exciting due to really rainy weather and me coming down with a bit of flu. There wasn't much else to it besides a stop-over town between Hoi An and our next destination Hanoi.

Hanoi was another sleeper bus away and we both decided to book some accommodation in advance so that we didn't have to spend too much time walking around. We booked ourselves in to the "World Hotel". When we arrived into town, there was a scam in place where we were dropped off (by our bus company) at a place that was very far from the tourist district. At the stop, there are many taxi drivers ready to grab your bags and quoted exorbitant prices to take us where we needed to go. We walked on for a couple hundred metres and found ourselves a street taxi willing to take us where we needed to go for a fraction of the cost. The hotel was a bit dirty and grimy, but we ended up staying for the 2 nights we were in town. We booked ourselves onto a 3 day/2 night cruise in Halong Bay from Hanoi and planned it so that we would be on the boat for the night of our 4 year anniversary. We left 8am the next morning and headed for Halong Bay. It's a 3.5 hour journey from Hanoi and we arrived at the port at around 12pm.

Halong bay is a beautiful bay filled with thousands of limestone outcrops popping out of the water each of them covered in lush green vegetation. We met our tour group and took a small boat t board our junk. We were very pleasantly surprised at how luxurious everything looked and felt. The boat was three floors. The bottom one being rooms only, the middle level having some more rooms and the dining room and the top having a deck with chairs, pot plants and a canopy.

We sat down to have lunch and ate a feast of seafood, chicken veggies and rice. We then headed for one of the main tourist attractions in the Bay: Surprise cave. The cave did not disappoint with it's huge caverns and areas worn-out by the sea. There has been an amazing lighting system installed that makes the surroundings really seem incredible. After that we headed to a floating village that is very similarly set-out to what we experienced in the Mekong delta, this time though, instead of farming cat fish, they had all sorts of seafood. After that we headed back to the boat for some relaxation time. Our room had a massive window with a view of the sea. We relaxed and had an afternoon nap and returned upstairs for dinner. After dinner, we stayed-up chatting to 2 New Zealand girls and to 2 guys from Germany.

The next day, we headed to Cat Ba island which is the largest and only inhabited island in Halong Bay. There we took a walk to the highest point in the reserve to a magnificent view of the surrounding bay. After that, we headed to check-in to our hotel for the night. Later that afternoon, we went to Monkey island around a 45min boat ride from Cat Ba. There, we had an option to walk around the island or take some kayaks onto the water. We took a kayak out onto the water and went around the circumference of the island. It was a great thing to do and I'm glad that we got the chance as it's something we haven't done yet. From there we headed back to Cat Ba to rest for the afternoon before dinner. After dinner, we went walking around town with another couple we met from the UK and came across the a massive celebration with a big market, stage show with music and around 5000 people. We later found out that it's a celebration to commemorate Ho Chi Min's first arrival onto the island. We went out afterwards for a couple beers and then headed home.

The next day we was all set around getting back home and we took the same boat back aswell as a bus back to Hanoi. The trip was a fantastic one with some incredible surroundings and beautiful views.