TK: The train pulled into hue at about 8am and we transferred to our hotel, we then headed out for big day of sightseeing. First we went to the citadel and saw the royal palaces of the Nguyen dynasty. Then we headed to the Tu Duc tomb which was in fact a royal fun park, filled with pavilions, ponds, forests and places for the emperors to get up to mischief. Finally we saw the Thien Mu pagoda, where we had a chat with a young monk. He has taken a vow of abstinen...

JK- Today we had a very early start to join in with some group exercises near Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi. What we didn't realise before was that everyone (including us in the end) would be dressed up as Father Christmas and filmed and photographed. Our exercise involved a few stretches whilst 'laughing' - hence laughing yoga. It was very infectious, and the whole surrealness of it meant that we found ourselves laughing anyway. Check out http://m.vnexpress.net/x...

JK - We left our mooring place in Ha Long Bay to head back to shore and onwards back to Hanoi. We arrived by mid afternoon and spent the rest of the day wandering around the Old Quarter buying and haggling on all the different streets. Our favourite was Hang Gai or 'Silk Street'. There were so many beautiful clothes and bags on sale we could have filled a whole suitcase, but alas, we only have so much room. In the evening we met up with everyone else to see a W...

TK: we set off early to drive to Halong city to join our boat to visit the UNESCO world heritage site of Halong bay. It is a stunning collection of limestone peaks jutting out of an emerald green sea. There are over 1000 of them in an area of 1500 sq km. we joined the boat, set sail and sat down to a delicious lunch of fresh seafood, prawns, whole crab and squid, with rice veg. After some cruising, we stepped off the boat visit the 'amazing cave.' It was huge w...

TK: we had a free morning to do some sightseeing in Vientiane before catching our flight to Hanoi. I also had my first western meal since we started the holiday, a BLT sandwich. It was damn tasty, but I'm definitely not missing Western food yet! We arrived in Hanoi, met the new guide, got a coach to the hotel, checked in and went out for dinner. It was a twenty minute walk through the old town. We live in London and have been to some mad big cities in our time, b...