We ran out of time to cycle back to Hanoi from Cat Ba. We were sold expensive tickets for the fast boat supposed to take 45 mins, it ended up taking 2.5 hrs. We then had to find the train station in Hai Phong, using the pointing picture book we found the station and managed to get tickets for the train, 1st class with bikes on board for £3 each!! We arrived back in Hanoi and had to make a plan for the next few weeks. Roo and I decided to travel together for a wh...

Wow what a day!! It started off on the wrong foot, we tried to get the hire bikes for Roo and Matt the American to cycle to Halong bay. We trekked across town to the bike hire place to find it closed! The security man at the bike hire place telephoned someone and sent us away to another hotel the other side of the town. Anyway after about 2 hrs of walking around the town we had seen the bikes, but the woman who has the keys for the lock seemed to have disappeared...

Roo arrived safely!! an early start for to catch the bus to the airport at 8 am how my perspective has changed in such a short time!! We got back to the hostel at about 11 a quick stop for Roo to drop her bags off before we headed out in to Hanoi to see the sights. Roo has brought some Thai sun with her, for the first time I've been here the sun came out. We walked around the city in the busy streets had some tasty spring rolls in a street cafe. I have event...

Have spent a quiet few days in Hanoi. It's really cold at the moment which is restricting what I'm able to do, I just have not brought enough clothes to cope in this weather! I bought myself a better map- yes Katie you were right! And have spent the past day planning the first part of my route. I now know which boarder crossing I want to take into Laos, the only problem is the guide book describes all remote crossings as 'a set menu from hell' so really looking f...

So I have been in Hanoi for 3 days now. The hostel is great lots of different people from all over the world, thankfully for me English seems to be the international language. The people in Hanoi are all very friendly and everything is very cheap. The traffic in the city is frightening, I was getting really worried about the prospect of cycling. The german cycle tourer was quite reassuring, but the traffic was still my biggest concern. The longer I watched the...