We arrive fairly well rested frm our soft sleeper overnight train, and leave our bags at Tiff and Simon's hotel to find a hostel and have breakfast, before finding a trave agent to book Halong Bay.... Hanoi is a bit crazy after Sapa and takes a bit pof getting used to but we have a nice dinner, and pack our bags to go to Halong Bay.

Well, we just aboutmade it over the border on a night bus from China! I think that bus journey has been the single most challenging part of our trip so far!! When boarding the bus which we hoped was the right one, we got ripped off by some dude claiming to be the "manager" who wanted to charge us 30 Yuan each as a "bag Tax" for extra fuelo - what cr*p, we did however pay him 50 as he was threatening to take opur bags off the bus - one for the ...

Last night in KunmingAfter a short stay in Lijiang we bussed it back to Kunming for one last slap up meal and beer with the tour followed by a day updating our blog ready for the 12 hour night bus to Sapa - bring on Vietnam!!

Kunming Travelling to Kunming was a fairly painful experience - a 20 hour journey on a hard sleeper, ouch!Ian got so bored he even read some of a book!Time did go a bit quicker than expected though and we were very grateful to finally roll into kunming in the afternoon - we found a pub with Angela from the group in the evening called Speakeasy and perused the menu that included 'fowl rectum' so for a change we went for french fries.The next day started with a bit...

Tiger Leaping GorgeAfter another long bus ride (made longer by the national holiday - who forgot to tell them to cancel it for our benefit?) we made it to the gorge.This is probably as peaceful, tranquil and as close to nature you'll get in China and we loved it.The views were stunning, the walk well needed and the guesthouses very chilled with great food (only downside were the squat toilets in both, gross).Highlights were: Liz overcoming her fear of heights and...