This is a very belated blog entry for our Vietnam trip, we actually left 16 days ago and have been in China since! After Saigon, we took a train to Nha Trang, only a 7 hour journey, but due to a massive hangover and the aircon not working in our carriage, it was traumatic! We were pretty disappointed with the beach in Nha Trang. We went on our first day there and after wadding through rubbish and the odd floating sanitary towel at the shore line, we didn't go back to the beach again! On our second day we met Mr Chan and Mr Tam, two unlicensed motorbike guides offering tours of the Central Highlands. I had been on a similar one in 1998 and we had heard good reviews of the "easy rider" tours, as they call them, from other travellers so we had been thinking about doing a trip. They both really nice likeable guys and after a chat over a coffee we arranged for them to take us on a 6 day trip from Nha Trang to Hue via the Central Highlands to go in two days time. As we had booked the trip with them, they offered to take us around Nha Trang to see the sights for free and we went out to Cham Towers and the big white buddah. It was quite good as well as we could see how safely they rode - fortunately they were both very good!!!!! The trip through the Central Highlands was fantastic, we both really really enjoyed it. Luckily I was on the back of Mr Chan as Jay was with Mr Tam who thought, at times, he was Evel Kinevel, ha ha!! As we were eating with them every meal, we got to try loads of different dishes and also paid the local price - roughly 7 different dishes with 4 drinks was costing around £4 and on a few occasions we had venison!!! The people in the villages of the Central Highlands are incredibly friendly and the scenery, particularly along the Ho Chi Minh Trail was beautiful. All in all, apart from having a sore arse, the bike trip was a highlight of our travels so far. We spent a couple of days in Hue, one sat by the river for 8 hours drinking Hue beer and the other attempting to visit the Imperial Tombs but it was sooooo hot we only saw the first one and gave up!!! We then took a day sleeper train to Ninh Binh, about 2 hours outside of Hanoi. It's known as "Halong Bay on the rice fields" and was really stunning. We spent the day cycling around Tam Coc amongst the beautiful scenery visiting temples, took a boat trip along the river and the highlight though, was a 500 step climb up a mountain to view the limestone peaks jutting out of the paddy fields. It was seriously hot and sweaty work but definately worth it. From Ninh Binh we took a local bus to Hanoi and within 10 minutes of leaving the town, 3 of the locals were being sick, the Vietnamese really do not travel well!!! Hanoi was as busy as ever and incredibly hot and humid, it was around 36 degrees. The amount of scooters and bikes on the narrow lanes make it a nightmare trying to cross the road. We did, however make the effort to vist Ho Chi Minh who did resemble something like a wax work dummy! From Hanoi we took a 3 day Halong Bay trip and went for the middle priced option. We spent one night on a great boat with an aircon ensuite cabin and there was only 11 of us in total. We visited a huge cave that was in one of the limestone cliffs but with all the caves we've seen on our trip, we were a bit "caved out"!!! The second day we stopped at a small island and cycled out to a village which we really enjoyed and we also went into "another" cave but it was pretty cool because you got really close to the bats inside. That night we stayed on Catba Island in a 3* hotel - woo hoo. We spent the next night in Hanoi and the following day we took a train to Nanning in China, soft sleeper, of course :-)