A wet rainy morning! After breakfast, a leisurely morning spent walking round the old quarter... Kids bought a few gifts for friends, we bought another piece of luggage! Yes we have a accumulated a lot of purchases over the last few weeks :-) Back to the hotel after lunch at bar 69 to pack. Can't believe we are on the last leg of our trip. Taxi pick up at 1pm for our flight to Da Nang at 3pm. We thank the very helpful staff we have got to know very well at The E...

We pulled up at Hanoi station at 4.50pm...far too early! We all had an okayish night...the air con was playing up and we all woke up at some point during the journey very cold! I was very grateful again that we made that purchase of the silk sleeping bags :-) We arrived back at The Essence hotel at 5.30. We were all in need of a shower and a change of clothes! 6.30am breakfast then off to the Hoi Chin Minh Mausoleum. A surreal trip. Very strict security in plac...

A good night's sleep in Miu's house for the homestay, interrupted only by the rain around midnight. We all fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. My legs and thighs ached badly this morning when I woke up! Bananas and pancake for breakfast, packed up our rucksacks, said our goodbyes to Miu and then on with our 5km trek with Lang to Hau Thau. Oh my goodness! The rain last night made everything very muddy! The first 5 minutes of the walk was nice and...

Muddy! Muddy! Muddy! The bamboo forests were definitely alot of fun, but also a bit deadly! Daddy even got bitten by a leech and it hasn't stop bleeding since. It was so fun and hilarious as mummy fell over many many times and most of the time her feet just appeared to look like a pile of mud. She was helped by two of the ladies from the Black Hmong tribe, one holding one hand and the other woman holding the other hand. She was princess penny! Even jake fell o...

We have 3G on Damian's phone! So, we made it through another overnight train journey! This one was a breeze compared to our last. Left Hanoi at 9.10pm last night. arriving at Sapa at 5.40am this morning. Kids slept the entire journey. We ALL had silk sleeping bags as well :-) which we all agreed made a big difference. The set up was slightly different anyway this time which made the journey in itself far easier. Sapa being such a "tourist" destination, us "...