The town of Ha Tien, gateway to Phu Quoc island is about an 8 hour road journey from HCMC, and one that we chose to do in the day instead of overnight as our desire for a proper night's sleep in a bed trumps saving on a night of hotel accommodation. But when we boarded the bus we were surprised to find that it was still a "sleeper" bus, and therefore had long reclining beds seats, pillows, and blankets! So the day journey turned into a cozy, dozy, on and off na...

We have returned to Vietnam! This was our first southeast Asian country back in November 2017, where we chose to only tour the top half of the country. The plan this time is to move from Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) way down in the south, up to the central area before we leave for Thailand. Our exposure to a major Vietnamese city last time was the capital of Hanoi in the north, and wow, that is a frenzied, captivating place. We had heard from fellow travellers...

Topping the list so far as the place where we have been most happily surprised is....Hanoi! Reading online and talking with some travellers about Hanoi had us prepared for an overhwhelming city with not much appeal, but we found that we really enjoyed it. Yes, the motorbikes and traffic are shocking at first. The little streets of the Old Quarter are absolutely stuffed with transport and we found that closed toed shoes and razor sharp concentration while walking...

It shows that we have been travelling together for too long, as this musical title of the earworm of this part of the journey was brought to you by Troy, NOT Clare. After much researching and deliberating, we decided to see Ha Long Bay (THE Vietnam sight) via a 3 day/2 night cruise with 1 night on the boat, and 1 night on Cat Ba Island. There are so many tour companies and boats operating variations of a Ha Long experience that it was almost impossible to decide...

...into the rice paddy, if you are not careful. This is November hiking in Sapa! We scheduled a 2 day/1 night trek with an organization called Sapa Sisters - a locally owned tour company by women from the H'mong tribe in northwestern Vietnam. We met our friendly guide early in the slightly rainy morning, rented rainboots on, full of excitement for the trekking experience. We were eager for the exercise as fried spring rolls, beach lounging, and torrential rain h...