Our last few days in Vietnam were spent in Saigon, or rather Ho Chi Minh City as it is now called. We found that the city itself was nowhere near as interesting as Hanoi with its crazy mopeds and street sellers. It is very Western in comparison, with tall skyscrapers, KFCs and lots of shops. For the first time since we arrived though, the weather was actually hot, so that came as a bit of a shock. We met up again with some of the people we'd been traveling throug...

We have now arrived in the mountain town of Dalat. In the week since I last wrote, we've traveled from Hanoi to Hue, Hoi-An and Nha Trang, for the most part on some pretty hairy sleeper buses. In Hue, we only stayed for the night, and visited some beautiful tombs. Hoi-An is a very quaint, picturesque little town, full of tailors, where we sampled some pretty awespme patisseries. Nha Trang is a beach city, where we decided we needed a bit of TLC after much lugging...

I am having a marathon blogging session here! So today we went to Tam Coc, which are river caves, and Hoa Lu, which used to be the capital of Vietnam. Our first stop was Hoa Lu, which is esstentially a temple dedicated to an important king, who is credited with unifying the five peoples of Vietnam. Inside the temple, local people were chanting. I wish I know what they were chanting about! It actually felt quite chaotic, rather than serene as you might imagine. A...

Halong Bay... to say that the place is beautiful would be a cliche as well as an understatement. We booked a two day tour with our hostel in Hanoi, which meant that we spent a night on a boat deep within the Bay. But more on that in a minute. So, we arrived in one piece (just about!) after a five hour bus trip, with our driver weaving through the insane traffic and cattle which were scattered across the bus' path. As we neared Halong, mountains started to appear...

Here goes, first entry! I feel quite excited about writing on here, and concerned about making it interesting... We arrived in Hanoi yesterday, after a brief stop-over in Bangkok. And this place is like nothing I have ever imagined. As we travelled from the airport into the centre of the city on an absolutley ancient bus, the first thing that struck me was the mopeds. They are everywhere, weaving in and out of traffic like there is no tomorrow. People transport ...