Our last day in Vietnam consisted of us packing up and sitting in airports and planes. After packing up in the morning Karina, Koskey and I took one last look through the markets in the old quarter to see what we could find. While at the markets I demonstrated much improved abilities to bargain, especially in comparison to our efforts in Hoi An. The trick I found in haggling is to show a little bit of interest at first and then pretend that you don't want to b...

Today marked the final of the Southeast Asia Graduate Conference Masterchef Vietnam special. We are still waiting for the votes to be counted but from my own biased opinion I think I had the competition covered. If my skills in making traditional spring rolls weren't enough my masterfully crafted a rose out of a tomato skin was almost flawless. We each made a sauteed Beef sauteed in black pepper sauce and the Fish simmered in fish sauce was a combined effort...

"Up and early because we don't want to miss the start of the cooking class this morning at 8am!!!! Ahhh wait, they didn't organise it because we weren't here to pay a deposit yesterday..."That was how this morning went for the adventurous group. After some waiting around and bit of a chat it was organised that the cooking class we had arranged to be booked for today, would be taken tomorrow. As well as being a bit of a let down, it also opened up our whole day an...

After a night of attempted rowdiness we woke up to the beautful surrounds of Halong Bay and enjoyed our first normal breakfast for the week. Consisting of toast, bacon and eggs, most of us were able to enjoy what was on offer, except for Karina "Tequila Sunrise" Voss who managed to be the first up, and also the first back to bed after becoming increasingly seedy. First item on the list today was to get off the Junk we were on and have a paddle through a cave/tun...

No good trip is complete without a big fuss at the start (At least with the McCosker family holidays, it usually gives us something to laugh about later though, here it's just an unrelentless stream of ribbing). This morning it was a mixture of phones going flat during the night so the alarm didn't go off, and an anonymous person using the last of the toilet paper so when the last person to use it in the morning ran out after about 4 squares. An awkward start to ...