Xin Chao from chuffin' cold Hanoi!

Left sunny old beachy place Nha Trang on a night-bus and suffered a 13 hour journey cuddled up 5 berths wide with a nice Aussie couple. Arrived in Hoi An (about half way up the country where its fairly skinny) and booked into a hostel that was as delightful as the weather was cold and rainy. Spent a couple of days wandering around looking at the old colonial style centre of the town and getting some clothes made (Hoi An is THE capital of "tell us what you want and come back in 4 hours" on dresses, suits, shoes etc etc). Did a tour to some 11th century Cham ruins called My Son, continuing the seemingly never ending series of "Kym and Jon visit temples around the world".

After a couple of days we took a bus another 4 hours north up the coast to Hue (lots of towns start with an "H" and to be honest its starting to get a bit blooming confusing!). We got a brief respite from the bad weather and took a tour to the De-Militarised Zone (DMZ) where Vietnam was patritioned into North and South Vietnam. Seemingly at odds with the name the DMZ is where some of the fiercest fighting took place with B-52's laying waste to the place. Visited another stretch of tunnels at Vin Mohc - these ones thankfully bigger that the last ones in the south where I got stuck because they lived in these rather than used them for ambushes.

Hue itself has a citadel at its heart with a moat and stuff and we took a day to wander around it - now utterley impervious to anyone trying to sell stuff to us.

After the nightbus experience on the last long haul trip we decided to take the overnight train on the trip from Hue to the capital Hanoi. It was a bit better but not really worth the difference in price and not quite the Orient Express experience we were after! Arrived in Hanoi at 5am and wandered into the old quarter of Hanoi in the pitch black. After a stonking brekkie at a french style cafe we started searching for a hotel and we had almost given up looking for the one we were after when a chap wanted to shows us his (so to speak). We get this ALL the time and 99% of the time they are told politely where to go but we relented this time for some reason and ended up at exactly the hotel we were after, hidden down a little alley.

Later we did a tour of Hanoi on foot to warm us up - this is the normal take your life in your hands job. In the scenic old quarter all the streets have shops of a similar nature so you get shoe street, trousers street, ironmongery street, decorations street, you get the idea as little hard faced Vietnamese woman charge from one place to another on their scooters in much the same manner as mums charge around Asda with shopping trollies.

After a day we got on a overnight train to Sapa which is on the Vietnamese / Chinese border. We did 2 days trekking (ho ho Kym and Jon "trekking") in the freezing fog and deep sticky mud meeting the indignous people of the area. It felt a bit like Tibet what with the tempreature, scenery and strange faces. Stayed overnight at a hotel that was having all its windows replaced after someone last week had used a kilo of explosives to remove a particulary tricky rock in the foundations of the building next door! This didn't help us stay too warm and when you've packed for 12 months in the sun we ended up wearing ALL our t-shirts and tops in one go!

Came back into Hanoi at 5am after a another night train and Kym did a spectacular swallow dive into an open drain in the darkness and has been nursing a bruised knee ever since! Went to see Ho-Chi-Minh himself laid to rest in his Mauseleum and was told off by AK47-toting guards about anything and everything it seemed!! Visited the "Hanoi Hilton" aka main prison where the brutal torturing French colonialists locked up the patriotic heroes in the 1950's war and American invaders were lovingly looked after by the North Vietnamese in the 1960's war - history written by the winners and all that! One of the displays was of John McCain's flight suit and helmet so it was interesting to see him on CNN that night in his run for the US Presidency.

Yesterday we went to the Perfume Pagoda which appeared to be an alter in a big cave to us but what do we know?! To get there we had to get 60kms out of town in a mad bus before being rowed (feeling slightly guilty) the last 4kms by a 14 year girl. It would have been very scenic and very beautiful if it wasn't for the freeeeezzzing conditions where an enclosed speedboat would have been more appropriate! Ended our time in Hanoi watching a performance at the water puppet theatre.

Off to another country tomorrow (Laos) where its warmer (hurrah!) and we get back to comparing the weather in London to where we are and laughing heartily!