We arrived at the Phu My Orphanage to be told that the children had flu and that we should go away as 2 volunteers had already caught the virus. So.... we asked if there was another orphanage that we could go to for that week instead, and there was - Dieu Giac. This orphanage is run by Buddhist monks, who believe that they are providing a permanent home for the orphans, therefore they are not ever adopted out. The children here are mostly able bodied with the exc...

Last entry we were heading towards Danang.. exact location not known. That turned out to be Quy Nhon, which is in the opposite direction. Quy Nhon didn't have much to offer although we took a little day trip over the mountains to find Bai Bau, which is a nice little beach with friendly locals who shared their rice wine and tried our suncream (apparently a new concept). After enjoying the first train journey we took the Reunification Express again to take us the ...

Caught a bus ironically called a sleeper from Hanoi, however it didn't stop at Dong Hoi where we wanted to get off so we ended up four hours further south in Hue. Fortunately this meant that we caught up with Shelley and Luke who we had met previously on our Halong Bay trip. Hue is nice, not as touristy as Hanoi - did some sightseeing and took a trip down Perfume River. Did some hard bargaining at the market for a set of chopsticks and found a great place to ea...

After many horror stories we eagerly awaited our flight into Hanoi with Vietnam Airways. Our fears were heightened as the plane continually dropped during bad turbulence as we came in to land. One thing that we thought we were prepared for was the taxi ride from the airport. Chaos broke our as taxi touts crowded us like paparazzi. We had nice calming melodies playing from the rear parcel shelf as scenes from the best of cops with cameras played out in front of u...

Sorry for not updating sooner - we have been having too much fun! Best part of Singapore was not actually in Singapore but formed part of an unprompted trip to Tioman Island in Malaysia. It's a beautiful island about a 5 hour coach journey and a short ferry ride from Singapore. We were staying in a chalet overlooking the sea at the top of the island called Panuba Bay. In comparison to other resorts, ours felt a lot more authentic. The jetty was made from bits of...