What a fabulous day in an amazing city. Have to say we are lucky to be alive. Started the day with a cyclo ride in peak hour traffic to drop off the laundry and have look at the outer wall and the moat of the Imperial City.Loaded up into the cyclo in single file and tried to stick together. When the lead driver stuck his arm out to complete the left hand turn, starting from the wrong side of the white line, against the red light, into the oncoming stream of traff...

Last morning on "Violet" was a busy one. Again, I was the only one on the sun deck (funny, another Vietnamese misnomer!) supervising the crew with the setup of the deck and the unfurling of the sails. Every railing and piece of furniture is carefully cleaned and polished to start the day and all this happens while most people are catching their last few zzzzs. And again, absolutely no takers for tai chi. (Correction: have been informed by the slander police that ...

Halong Bay was hidden this morning by the dark "mist" of industrial Vietnam. The morning greeted us with a water surface that was completely still but without a single ray of sunshine. Although I was on the top deck of "Violet", enjoying the unfurling of the giant junk sails, it was impossible to get even a hint of where the sun was rising. Hope the Captain is not navigating by celestial queues because none were visible.I was the only passenger on deck this morni...

The mission this morning was to be packed and out of the room by 6.30 am so that breakfast could be finalised, luggage collected and the checkout process completed and we could be loaded into the minibus and on the road by 7.30 am. The Esmeralda is such a large complex we had to allow a good 10 minutes to get from building to building and then factor in all the other groups leaving at the same time. It required strategic planning to ensure that we had all the tab...

The music played in the corridor and the train attendant tapped on the door to wake the train travellers. It was an uneventful night although in comparison with the ride up there was certainly much more revelry from the young back packers on board and the train seemed to be hurtling at a faster speed with a more exaggerated sway. But the important news of the morning was that the combination of the tablets and the bands had made a significant difference for Lorai...