Day 241- We arrived in to Hanoi city centre about 6am, luckily we recognised our surroundings, we avoided the taxi touts and moved on to a back street to flag one down, we asked to be taken straight to the bus station which luckily wasn't too far away. Once there we were told the desk didn't open till 7am, we befriended an English woman who said she would watch our big bags while we went in search of breakfast. First thing we came across was kebab (these things ...

Day 239- We slowly bounced into the platform at around 6ish and before we could get off the train we had touts shouting out offers for minibuses to Sapa town. We were currently in a town called Lao Cai as it was the closest the train could bring us, it was another hour by minibus to Sapa. So once out the station we started to ask prices, one man quoted 100,000 Dong which we simply laughed at. He kept following us and asking if we wanted it but when we said yes ...

Day 236 - We woke up feeling all refreshed in our lovely room, we enjoyed a lovely breakfast of pancakes, juice and coffee before checking out. The place was perfect but out of our price range, the staff were so lovely and gave us loads of information before we left. We checked in to somewhere round the corner, not as nice but nearly half the price. We went straight out and explored the Old Quarter. Firstly we stumbled upon a shop selling the famous Vietnamese ...

Day 233- The only reason we were in Sam Neua was to visit the caves in Vieng Xai where the communist party hid during the 'Secret War'. So really we wanted to get straight to Vieng Xai last night but by the time we arrived in Sam Neua there was no more buses. Then after some research last night we were led to believe that we could catch a bus direct from Vieng Xai town to Vietnam. So we thought we would stay in Sam Neua for a day and then get the first bus to ...

Day 231- We arrived in Phonsavan at 7:30am, it was really cold and we hadn't slept a wink on the awful bus. We got a tuk-tuk to the centre and had a walk round looking for hotels and tours of the plain of jars. We eventually found a place called 'Nice' hotel. We asked about buses and and tours and he explained that because it was low season there wasn't many tourists about so if we wanted to go we would have to pay a crazy amount of money to send a tour out jus...