After three days in Hanoi it was off to Halong Bay for an overnight cruise. Amazing place,it is no wonder it is world heritage listed.

We checked in at the Hotel Charming, which was charming by name and by nature. Hanoi is a fantastic place, with probably about as many motorcycles as in HCMC but the streets are narrower. It's got a lot of character, and the people go out of their way to make you feel welcome. The cooler weather was also a welcome change.

We decided to extend our stay in Hoi An by a day and reduce our time in Hue to only one night. This is one advantage of being a free range tourist rather than being on a packaged tour. It was a good decision as one day was enough to see the Citadel, which is the main attraction of Hue. The hotel offered us the opportunity to see a couple of pagodas but the kids rebelled and we felt we had seen enough pagodas already. The Citadel is impressive and is really with s...

Hoi An is a wonderful interlude between the busier places in Vietnam. It's easy to walk around at night and think "this is not a real place". The old town centre is heritage listed and is exactly the same as it was a hundred years ago. The restaurants are great and the tailor shops offer you the ability to make anything you want overnight. We were able to hire a wheelchair for Wendy to make it easier to get around. We hired it from the local hospital and I'm sur...

HCM second time around. We hadn't planned on staying another night in HCM but with yesterday's incident we had no choice. We were also waiting on medical advice as to whether we should cut our trip short and fly back to Sydney. We also needed time to sort out all the administration with medical centers and insurance. While I was in hospital with Wendy I developed a stomach bug that resulted in some very violent vomiting and diarrohea. Just what I needed at this...