Well we had a lovely wet day out yesterday. We got picked up at our Hanoi hostel yesterday at 8:30am and had a 2 hour mini bus ride to Hoa Lu which used to be the capital city of Vietnam. We visited two temples that were built in the 17th century and learnt some interesting facts about how one dude wanted to be king so he was going to kill the king, but then the king found out his plans and killed this dude so he didn't become king. Then the king wanted his son t...

After a comfy nights sleep in our fancy boat cabin we went upstairs for our 7:30am breakfast. It was a buffet breakfast so we didn't have to sit at the fussy eaters table this time, and we've actually had sun today so it was a beautiful way to start the day, surrounded by many of the limestone rock islands. Shortly afterwards we arrived at a pearl farm which was situated in the middle of Halong Bay somewhere. A guide took us around the various areas and explain...

The shuttle bus picked us up at around 8:30am in the end, and we commenced the four hour drive to Halong Bay, having a rest stop halfway. There was about 17 of us on the tour in total plus our awesome tour guide Luan. It was a very friendly group from all different areas of the world, and the only other Brits were a lovely couple called Chelsea and Reece, who were from.... WALES! North Wales actually, very near where Lowri will soon me moving back to! We arrived ...

Well we decided to just stay local for our last day in Ho Chi Minh so we had the option of rushing undercover during times of down pours. We took a long stroll around the city and visited the Vietnam War Museum, which was very good but very emotional in parts. In the evening we sampled some more Vietnamese cuisine in a restaurant next to the hostel, then headed back for an early night and to get packed and ready for our early flight the next day. We flew from Ho...

Well we certainly slept well after our 21 hour journey. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh airport to immediately get ripped off by the first taxi driver we used. He charged us the equivalent of £20 each for a 20 minute taxi ride. Needless to say we were slightly mift, but didn't think it worth the risk of arguing so we paid and checked into our hostel at around 2am local time. We eventually decided to get up and explore Ho Chi Minh at around midday, and stopped at...