CAFE CULTURE DAY 47: Hanoi Today primarily centred around eating, drinking and chatting in different establishments in Hanoi. After breakfast we used the hotel's friendly in-house travel agent to arrange our travel to Hoi An, our destination after tomorrow's two day trip to Halong Bay (both destinations are UNESCO World Heritage Sites). Our original plan was to get an overnight train to Danang (for Hoi An) costing £24, meaning transport and accommodation wa...

THREE'S COMPANY DAY 46: Hanoi Another early awakening saw me head out for breakfast at about 7.30am to the bakery we went to yesterday. This time I bought three pastries - one for the way back and one each for me and Jen when I got back to the room. Well, it's only fair. Although I didn't do a very good job at hiding my greed as Jen busted me when I got back. Left the wrapper in the carrier. We checked out of our room at 11am and trudged through the streets ...

HANOID WITH THE MOPEDS DAY 45: Hanoi Up at 5am this morning, with the sound of some faint tooting in the background. Does this city not stop? When a sensible hour finally arrived (11am), we headed out to find some breakfast at a bakery Jen had read about, as we weren't really feeling the rice-for-breakfast vibe. We found the bakery after about 15 minutes and the food on offer was delicious - a light and airy pain au raisin and pain au chocolat to go. We then...