13/10/09 Perfume Pagoda We arrived back in Hanoi at 5.30am after a really awful night on the night train from Lai Cao. We were shaken around throughout the night and both had very little sleep. apparently it may have been because we had the beds over the wheels but not sure if theres anything in that. We jumped into the nearest taxi and asked for a fixed fare but he said he had a meter...one that spun round at a rapid pace!! He drove really slowly and nervously ...

9/10/09 Sapa Saturday We woke up and packed an overnight bag for a later visit to Sa Pa in the mountains near the Chinese border in North Vietnam. The towns name means town in the clouds but we were hoping for good weather so we would get great views of the terraced hills and farms. We left the rest of our luggage in the hotel as we would be back there after a couple of nights away. We strolled into town calling in at a couple of stores on the way to buy a few s...

Tuesday 6/10/9 Enroute to Vietnam We checked out of the hostel and caught the 6.15 bus to the airport. After a straight forward check in we had a couple of hours before boarding the flight south to Brisbane. Unfortunately we weren't on a direct flight and would backtrack across Australia from Brisbane to Hong Kong for a transit stop. After 1 hour waiting in Brisbane we got on our plane headed for Hong Kong. We had a nine hour flight but had fantastic views over ...

4/10/9 Back to Cairns (Sunday) We had a 5.45 am wake up knock at the door and Phil went off to do a sunrise dive. Liz stayed in bed for alittle while longer and then packed the bags and sorted out the bed laundry as we needed to clear the room soon after breakfast. Phils dive had poorer visibility but he still saw a white tipped reef shark. He and his buddy surfaced 100m away from the boat and then had a rope tow back to the Kangaroo Explorer from the tender tha...

2/10/9 Barrier Reef (Friday) We were collected by the Cairns Dive Centre driver and taken to the dive shop in town to sign the usual disclaimer and medical forms. We boarded the Sunkist boat at the marina for a two hour transfer to the Kangaroo explorer where we were staying for the next two nights. The boat was moored at the outer reef on Manta Ray reef. We got a quick tour of the boat and were shown to our very nice double cabin with en suite shower and toilet...