We took another sleeper bus from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh, non eventful and very comfy! We spent almost a week in Ho Chi Minh as we had to change our travel plans somewhat. We were going to fly to the Philippines after 3 days here but after heavy floods & two typhoons in Manilla we sadly decided to change our itinerary. Therefore, it was worth seeing out our visa for Vietnam. On our first day we walked around District 1 where we are staying. We went to t...

Our first experience of a night bus went much better than expected. The buses have 3 rows of double bunks and we managed to get one next to eachother. It means you almost get a bed to yourself, certainly enough room to lie down and after they turned the lights out at 9 we both slept almost all the way apart from a few juddery moments when the roads got bumpy. Nah Trang is on the coastline of Vietnam and as soon as we had found a guesthouse we waisted no time i...

We had a good bus journey to Hoi An on what they call a tourist bus as the local buses don't run here. Hoi An was once a busy trading town due to ships passing through but a nearby river silted up in the late 19th century and now it is a popular place for tourists as so much of the old town is still as it was a over 100 years ago. We arrived late afternoon so we booked in at a guesthouse and went for some food and beer next to the river. The buildings are very...

We took the train from Ninh Binh to Hue (pronounced Hway) which was really exciting. We had "soft seat" tickets and although it took 12 hours to get to Hue it was a very enjoyable journey. We had loads of leg room, met a nice couple from New Zealand, were able to get up and smoke between the carriages and they even had food and drink carts every few hours. The scenery was amazing too, we saw lots more limestone mountains and went over some really pretty rivers...

We took the bus to Ninh Binh and were picked up at the bus station by a very nice guesthouse owner promising us good rates and a nice room. He was right and we settled in for 2 nights here. Ninh Binh is in the guidebook as being like a mini Halong Bay on land and it didn't dissapoint. We hired a bike and rode 20 kilometres to a buddhist complex called Chua Bai Dinh, the largest pagoda in Vietnam. Our ride there was so pretty we took loads of photos and stoppe...