Sapa Day One ... Sapa is a built up quirky little town but just outside is all the Minority people's villages! Also the place is surrounded by rice fields. Did you know rice is grown in mucky water and is encased in a stem, and the stem grows up the leaf, then when you pierce it open you all the rice is on a bunch like a bunch of grapes! We went to Catcat village this morning, it was an easy 6km round trip and interesting to see. This pm was free time, so eig...

Halong Bay Day Three... Today we spent the day going back to Hanoi. We got a boat, bus, boat, boat, bus :) We stopped back on the original boat for lunch and a swim. It was so hot when sunbathing there was no wind and it was uncomfortable, I managed to burn my back through my sarong... Yes mum I bought a sarong in Rio :) saves getting my towel sandy :P When swimming the current was so strong it was like being on a swimming treadmill. I'd swim out 20-30m away f...

Halong Bay Day Two... Today we got off of the boat and got a bus to Monkey Island. It was a gorgeous little paradise, the beach and the little log cabin bungalows were a postcard picture. And the food was gorgeous! We went for a 'trek' after lunch... More like rock climbing!! We climbed up the back of the resort and over the highest point of the island and down the other side, to see some Monkeys :-) We were feeding two, then loads appear flying through the t...

Halong Bay Day One... We had a 4 hour bus journey to our boat in Halong Bay Harbour, it was torrential rain pretty much most of the way. But by the time we got to the boat the sun came out to play :) We sailed to the Sung Sot Cave, which is one of the new seven wonders of the world, apparently it wasn't discovered until 1993. It was huge and had the biggest stalagmites and stalagtites I've ever seen. Some looked like lions, fish, a bird with a big beak. Then th...

I flew to Vietnam this morning, I left the hotel at 4am spent an hour on the flight, and a hell of a lot longer waiting for my baggage to appear on the carousel the other end... I swear it was slower than Gambia!! When boarding the plane at Bangkok we had to get on a bus from the gate to the plane. It took about 20minutes and it was the strangest journey. It was like it took us through the plane graveyard!! There was so many planes with engines missing, windows ...