After a very early wake up I was bundled onto a bus headed for Ha Long Bay. It was a 4 hour journey which seemed to take longer than that. You couldn't lose anyone from our group as we were all issued with rainbow coloured sombreros and looked like idiots walking round! We arrived at Ha Long port to be taken to a boat where I was soon to discover that it was to be me and 11 men on this particular boat till we got to Ca Ba Island the following day...of course I di...

After accepting the fact that I just need to wait for my financial problems to be fixed by the company I pretty much did nothing today apart from walk around the town in search for a pen as I'd lost mine (you wouldn't believe how many shops I had to walk in to find one) and grab some food. Today was pretty much a do nothing day whilst I waited for 9 pm to roll round so I could draw out some money! However, since I was going to be here for another night I thought...

Today I woke at what would normally be the crack of dawn for me in the UK to get up and have breakfast so I could hire a bike and make it over to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Now I had heard the traffic here was a bit mental and it's true. There are random traffic restrictions but if you're riding a bicycle forget it you can violate almost all of them including going down one way streets but I am still not ok with turning right on a red light...we'll still wait for...

Ok more serious blog entry now...The journey from Vientiane to Hanoi really did take 26 hours and it was not the most comfortable. Arriving at the Vietnam border at 1.30 am for it not to open till 7 am at least allowed us to sleep for a few hours without the rocking of the bus and tooting of the horns jolting us awake. As I said, immigration is very thorough here, even your bags get x-rayed when coming into the country. I will admit I spent a couple of days wonde...

After setting off from my hotel at 5 pm in the evening, we finally made it to Hanoi about 26 hours later...to say it was the longest bus ride of my life is actually true and no exaggeration! Immigration in Vietnam is actually more confusing but also more strict than in India (which I already thought was a little over the top). The best thing about it is someone makes sure you have a proper visa before signing you out of the country you have just come from so you ...