We had a lovely few days back in Hanoi, enjoying the hustle and bustle of a city again. Hanoi seems to be such a diverse city with the hectic and busy Old Quarter to the quiet wide streets of the French Quarter. Our hostel was almost in the middle of the market in the Old Quarter and it was fun to sit on the steps and watch the world go by. Our journey back from Cat Ba was painless, we just booked one of the bus and boat combination tickets which worked out abo...

In an attempt to get off the main tourist trail, we decided to make our own way to the coast and stay on Cat Ba island rather than in Halong Bay on a boat. Alex, Bea, James and I had booked the train to Hai Phong where we would then head to the pier to pick up a boat - details were a little sketchy though as we couldn't really find any decent information from our own online searching. Ronny and Breno, after sorting out some bits in Hanoi, were getting a bus/boa...

We were both excited to see Sa Pa by day, reap the visual rewards for the long journey there and bask in the beauty of the Tonkinese Alps. As we opened our bedroom door out to the shared balcony area though, we were disappointed to see that we were in fact in a cloud…and unfortunately as well, the long journey or my first bowl of the famous northern Bun Cha had affected my tummy. So our first day of exploring the town was reduced to a relaxed day and a gentle...

Time to head into Vietnam! We wanted to start our tour of the country in the northwest - Sapa to be more precise, and we had a choice of how to get there; 1) Fly to Hanoi (northeast) from Luang Prabang, then bus/train overnight to Sapa - the easiest, less adventurous and more expensive option. 2) Take the 24 (or more likely 30) hour bus to Hanoi and then double back on ourselves by overnight train/bus - 30 hours on a bus in one go, no thank you very much. So that...

We had a lovely few days chilling out in Luang Prabang making sure our batteries were fully charged ready for our journey across the border into Vietnam. Sorting out our visa for Vietnam took a matter of minutes and once again, we were passport-less for a few days. Luang Prabang is a lovely quiet town, it's a UNESCO world heritage site as well which makes it very popular, but it was still very quiet when we were there. We spent some time walking around the ...