Date: 1st July 2011 Place: Sapa Weather: Slightly cloudy Arrived at 5am and were picked up from the train station with a sign saying Camel Evans instead of Carmen. We then had a wait in the carpark for another train to come in so we had a mess around with people trying to sell us bread by offering them 1000dong for ages and they just kept trying to sell it to us (they wanted 10,000dong). When we set off and were going up the hills it was stunning. All t...

Date: 30th June 2011 Place: Hanoi Weather: sunny First thing we did today was book a trip to Sapa. We thought it was going to be hard work but it wasn't too bad. They would pick us up that evening from down the road from our hostel. To fill up the day we went to the lounge area of the hostel and watched a bit of Slumdog Millionaire with Pete and James. We then thought we should see some of Hanoi so went for a walk down to the lake which apparently had a...

Date: 29th June 2011 Place: Halong Bay Weather: sunny Today was just the long journey back to Hanoi. In the morning we got back on the little boat which took us to the big boat which took us close to the shore where we got on another little boat to go back to the bus station. We sat there for about an hour listening to the Vietnamese karaoke until 6 of us were taken on an emptier bus with another group back to Hanoi. When we got back it was unlimited pi...

Date: 28th June 2011 Place: Halong Bay Weather: Sunny Woke up today feeling all refreshed after a lot of sleep. We had breakfast and then had to get on a small boat that took us to the Castaway Island we were stopping on for the next night. It was a bumpy journey so it didn't help the people who were feeling a bit rough from the night before. On our way we passed a few floating villages where people lived who had never been on land. The beach we were st...

Date: 28th June 2011 Place: Halong Bay Weather: Sunny Woke up today feeling all refreshed after a lot of sleep. We had breakfast and then had to get on a small boat that took us to the Castaway Island we were stopping on for the next night. It was a bumpy journey so it didn't help the people who were feeling a bit rough from the night before. On our way we passed a few floating villages where people lived who had never been on land. The beach we were st...