We're back!!! Did you miss us?!

We've been busy since we last updated our blog. As we said we went North from Ho Chi Minh to a lovely little town called Hoi An, where we spent two days. This is THE place for getting clothes made. Every shop is a tailor, with massess of materials and silk, and everything made to measure in 24 hours! No surprise to all of you I'm sure, but I did buy quite a lot, but it's great value and good quality! In the end, I got two dresses, three tops, a skirt and a jacket - Dan also got a jacket. And all for hundred pounds!!! (you will be able to see all our purchases when we upload pictures!)

Apart from the shopping Hoi An has a lovely riverside setting which makes it a nice place to hang out for a few days and watch the world go by (although the further north you get in Vietnam the colder it gets).

Next stop from here was Hue, and then an overnight bus to Hanoi (by this time we're talking English weather!). In Hanoi, we went for dinner with an ex colleague, Hung and his wife, that I worked with when in Macau. The food was great and we sampled some local rice wine - which actually tasted very similar to port.

From Hanoi, we took a boat trip out to Ha Long Bay. This was one of the most enjoyable things we have done to date (maybe helped by a fair bit of vino drunk in the evening!). The scenery is fabulous, but we were also really lucky and were on a trip with a great bunch of people - all from down under, apart from one other English girl. We had a great time with all of them - hello if any of you are reading this, and we look forward to catching up with you in Oz.

After a night back in Hanoi, spent at a cabaret show (which involved lots of very good looking and sexy Vietnamese girls!) we took a trip out to the Mai Chau valley, a few hours from Hanoi. More spectacular scenery, and walks through rural Vietnam. It is amazing how much farming is still done by hand and water buffalo, we didn't see any modern farming machinery...

After an evening in a village in the valley we headed off to a national park, which was pretty much jungle. Unfortunately we didn't see much wildlife apart from a massive beetle and a few birds! The park also has a primate rescue centre that we visited before heading back to Hanoi for our flight to Laos.

Hope you are all well - thanks to all of you for the messages, we really enjoy reading them and hearing from you.

Bye for now xxx