Rainy season We thought we would take a boat trip down the river today, however, yesterday, I started to feel a bit crappy again so we decided not to. I think the mixture of humidity and air conditioning plays havoc with my sinuses and I just sneeze constantly resulting in a thick headache. (I'll stop whinging.) Anyway, it was just as well. It rained hard throughout the night and all day today. It subsided a little at 2pm so we headed out for something to eat...

14 hours to Hué We arrived in Hué this morning at around 9am. We were picked up last night at 6pm by a 14-seater minibus which would take us to the overnight bus. There were already 7 people and their backpacks on board. We then made 2 further stops; the first collected one Vietnamese man and his suitcase, we arrived at the second stop to find 7 people each with rucksack and daypack. You do the maths. Basically only about 2 of the people and their bags would...

Hanging out in Hanoi We have spent the past few days milling around Hanoi, we visited the Vietnamese Museum of Ethnology and generally just soaked up the atmosphere. Now tuned in to the constant revving of bikes and beeping of horns we're crossing the roads like locals. People are constantly trying to sell you something; oranges, bananas, lighters, hats, wallets, hammocks, books, postcards, CDs, DVDs, conical hats, hanging conical hats, all from the back of th...

A few days away from the crowds We didn't do much on Monday other than go to the Cambodian Embassy to get some visas rather than waiting to get them at the border crossing where we're more at the mercy of whoever is on patrol that day. We carefully deliberated and decided that we would not be taking a trip with our hostel, so we went in search of a travel agent to sort a trip to Halong Bay. There are tens of travel agents so we went with one recommended by Lo...

Bikes, bikes and more bikes Today we caught the bus to Hanoi at 7.30am, along with a mixture of Chinese and Vietnamese people. It took about 3 hours to reach the Chinese border at Pingxiang. An extremely friendly and helpful Vietnamese man from our bus helped us throughout the process. We filled in our entry cards at the Vietnamese border and so left China. We got on our bus and travelled the 6 hours to Hanoi. We all stopped at a roadside café for 'pho' a Viet...