Leaving Hong Kong we headed to mainland China, first stop Shanghai.Shanghai was apparently little more than a fishing and weaving town before the British arrived around 1842 after the first Opium War, turning it into a huge, international trading port.The Nanking Treaties (which were massively in favour of the British) meant the international community jointly ran the city with the Chinese, though, similar to Hong Kong, the Chinese have tried to take credit ...

Well we?eventually managed to escape Hanoi, thank goodness we used to own Hong Kong, saved us any visa trauma!So we arrived on a flight at about 11pm, so didn't really get any chance to book anywhere nice! We heard there were a couple of mansion blocks in Kowloon area that were supposed to be cheap so headed there. We ended up taking the tinyest room, with the added luxury of an itchey bed, well it was only 10 quid! In Vietnam we got hotel style accomodation ...

We're sure you'll all be amazed to know, after all your comments about us being a bit detailed in our blogs, that we forgot to write down some of the things that really stood out in South East Asia. Firstly the bikes.  Bikes are everywhere (apparently six million in Hanoi alone), but it's not just the sheer volume of bikes but the things that happen on them too.  It's not unusual to see whole families on bikes, and I think the most people we've seen on ...

Arriving in Hanoi after a night on a bus was like a scene from an old war movie or George Orwell's 1984, as the streets were deserted and propaganda-sounding music and messages were played into the streets over loud speakers. This was our final experience on the open bus, which took us from Saigon to Hanoi (about forty hours of travelling) for just $17 each, and we were glad as they were anything but comfortable.  The air-conditioning barely worked, the drive...

Leaving Hoi An for Hue we felt drained after spending all our time in the tailors and was a little sad to leave as it is a lovely town, but also glad to have no more fittings.  Hope the arms don't fall off when we get them home! The bus journey to Hue was just a few hours, and along the way we stopped off by a beautiful lagoon.  Unfortunately nearly all our journeys in Vietnam have been at night so we've missed the scenery. Hue (spoken like a dirty old ma...