This time our carriage had seats with cushions, which made the return journey from Haiphong to Hanoi a good deal more comfortable than before. We arrived at the main station at around 19:00 on Thursday 19 July, with the plan to buy tickets for the 23:00 sleeper train to Hue. The train station was manic (it seems the Vietnamese have no concept of queing - you just need to push your way to the front) but eventually we managed to speak to a ticket lady. She inform...

We were a little concerned when we realised that we would be flying in an old-school propeller plane... neither of us had had the pleasure before and the engines didn't look very big. We were pleasantly surprised by Laos Airlines though - everything was shiny and clean and, even though it was just a one hour flight, we even got a snack after take-off :-) We landed in Hanoi late in the afternoon on Saturday 14 August. Even though we had applied for our Vietnames...