We got up at 5.30am and had breakfast at 6am then got ready for our trip to Halong Bay. We were picked up just after 8am for the 3 and half hour drive to the harbour where we would board our boat for the cruise and one night stay on Halong and Bai Tu Long Bay. The guy who picked us up came into the foyer of the hotel and asked around for us. He came over to us and shoved a mobile phone under our noses and asked if we were the people named on the text message he w...

Today we flew out of Hue to Hanoi. Hue's airport was tiny with only one other flight other than our flight leaving while we were there. It was a long shed with two gates and half a dozen shops selling overpriced tourist crap. The flight was fine except for two events, one that the flight left early (never had that happen before!) and the other as we descended to land at Hanoi our plane hit some turbulence and dropped a few metres straight down before flying o...

Had a bit of a sleep in and then went on our tour to the royal tombs at 11am. We drove to a number of tombs which were huge and interesting places. The first was the tomb of Tu Duc which was massive and filled with gardens and lakes.The next stop was the tomb of Khai Dinh which was the newer of the tombs we visited. It had great views over the mountains and very steep stairs.The last tomb we visited was the oldest, tomb of Minh Mang. This was the largest tomb com...

Despite yesterday's problems we got up and decided we'd give the place another chance. We went down to reception to book a tour to the Imperial tombs near Hue and the airport transfer for Friday. While booking the tour we mentioned the problem we had getting suggestions for restaurants last night. The woman at concierge apologised for what happened and gave us a good suggestion and even got the menu emailed and printed for us. We walked over to the Citade...

We arrived in Hue a bit after 1pm and checked into the hotel, La Residence. Hotel is situated in old French governor's building, a beautiful hotel and grounds.We decided to go down to hotel receptions to get some directions to the nearest supermarket and shopping centre to get some supplies and also to get some lunch. We went to the area where were told there was a shopping centre but due to a misunderstanding we were directed to the shopping area. We found a...