Off to Halong Bay today so we left our rucksacks at the hotel and just took our small bags with the stuff we needed for overnight. We got picked up in a minibus/transit van, which wasn't very comfortable with about 12 people squeezed in! I hoped we were being taken to a bigger bus but unfortunately that wasn't the case. Our guide, Thanh, who looked about 12, introduced himself and explained it would take us about 3 hours to get to Halong City where we would board...

As we arrived in Hanoi this morning, the rain was lashing down - the worst we've seen for a while! We got off the bus and sheltered in a shop doorway while we got our bearings. We managed to find a taxi to take us to our hotel, where they had a room ready for us even though we were very early! We checked in and then went back down to reception to book our Halong Bay tour for tomorrow morning. We managed to get a pretty good deal; we picked the 'superior' option a...

After breakfast this morning, I spent a few hours finishing and sending off a job application - it's quite difficult to do in a short time frame and I think I could have done it better, but we'll see what happens! At 1pm we were picked up in a minivan and taken to the bus station for our bus to Hue, which will be followed by the sleeper bus to Hanoi. It's a longer journey than the last sleeper bus but we're hoping it will be more comfortable this time (working a...

This morning, we were up early for our free breakfast at the hotel - a fantastic buffet that we definitely made the most of! Then we headed out for our day of sightseeing in Hoi An! Our first stop was the Museum of Trading Ceramics...not the most thrilling of exhibits, but it was worth going in for the house - a restored wooden building which gave us an idea of how Hoi An must have looked in the mid-nineteenth century. Next was Quan Cong Temple, which was founded...

After a surprisingly OK journey on the sleeper bus, we arrived in Hoi An at around 8am. We didn't know how to get to the hotel we'd booked so we got a taxi. Unfortunately, we couldn't check into our room until noon, so we left our bags and used the free computers to look up where to go to get some clothes made which is what Hoi An is famous for. We decided to go to the place that Emma got her dress made when she came in December. Dave wrote down the name of anoth...