Back by popular demand, DH wanted to describe her favourite town since Luang Prabang in Laos. Asia time kicks in again as we try to make our way to Hoi An. The van that was to deliver us to the bus stop arrived 50 minutes late. But no worries- the bus itself was also running late so we perched ourselves on plastic stepping stools on the road out front of the 'bus stop' which was actually a ticketing agent and women's clothing store (wonder who it was ...

We hadn't planned on stopping in Hue, but we were talked into it by other travelers that had just come from there. We only have 3 years so we can't stop everywhere but we thought we'd take a flyer on this place. To get to Hue we did another of the overnight Vietnamese trains and were bunked in with an Aussie couple once again- I've got to think that at any given point in time, at least half of the population of Australia is not actually in Austral...

The bad, the really bad, and the bizarre. The three things I will remember most about Hanoi are the cycles, the hassles, and the posing.It may be a bit unfair to classify the cycles as bad but since we had arrived from Laos where the drivers would actually stop to let you cross a road and we hadn't heard a horn blast the entire time we were there. That all changed in Hanoi as I think that the only skill set taught in Hanoi Drivers Education is how to lay on y...

After feasting on copious amounts of rice and noodles for the last month, it was time for a bit of a physical challenge to tweak the metabolism a bit before my resemblance to the Happy Budda became any greater. To that end we arranged for some mountain biking out of Bac Ha which was located east of our fog safari in Sapa. We were joined on our 2 day bike adventure by a couple of Aussies, Sarah and Andrew- Sarah's family was Vietnamese and she quickly became t...

We boarded the overnight train to Lao Cai with a bus connection straight uphill to Sapa. Since it takes 12 hours, the train offers up the very civilized option of sleeper cabins for the night but it's a cabin for 4 so you have to hope you aren't linked up with the heavy drinking and snoring types- we ended up with a couple of honeymooners but given the size of each of the berths (designed by the same guy who worked on that knee-crunching bus in Laos), the...