We left Hoi An and drove to the railway station at Da Nang to catch the Re-unification Express sleeper train to Saigon. it was a really good journey and I've never slept so well on transport so far! We arrived in Saigon about 5am and got a taxi to where the cheap hotels and bars were. Of course being 5am none of the hotels or guest houses were open yet so we found a 24hr bar called GO2 and had a beer while we waited for the hotels to open. It was quite disturbing though watching loads of seedy western men [View Full Entry]

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We spent a few days in Hoi An visiting our first real beach of the trip so far and the tailors in town. You can literally fill your wardrobe here getting everything made however you want it. We went to one place called Mr Xe and he was hilarious. He was basically the Vietnamese John Humpfries! There's also loads of souvenir shops and art for sale. I bought so much stuff because it was so cheap. I wish i could've bought more but my bag was already too full with stuff. One day they shut the roads by the river down [View Full Entry]

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we spent another couple of nights in Hanoi so i could find a new camera and Adam wanted to try and find the girl we was with in the Solace bar. he tried and failed unforunately! we left Hanoi on the 7th to get an overnight bus down to Hué in the middle of the country. was about a 12 hour drive. we only paid for a normal aircon bus but somehow managed to blag our way onto a sleeper bus. glad we did because met some cool people on the bus and hopefully i would be able to get some [View Full Entry]

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We left Hanoi on the train on 2nd to go to Haiphong so we could get a ferry to Cat Ba island and see Ha Long bay. We stayed a night in Haiphong which wasn't a great town. Not a lot there. Got a hydrofoil the next morning to Cat Ba island which is a beautiful island, only about 30km from top to bottom. We got a nicish hotel on the seafront in Cat Ba town and then paid about 4quid to rent a motorbike to explore the island. To say I've never driven a motorbike before, let alone been on [View Full Entry]

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We spent the next few days exploring Hanoi. I really love this city and could happily spend a long time here. Annoyingly the first day was Friday and most of the museums,etc are closed. But walking round the town is just brilliant. The area around Hoan Kiem Lake is beautiful and its great just walking along it in the evening just watching all the couples sitting by the lake enjoying the view. We walked round the military museum and Ho Chi Minh meseum the next day, as well as exploring the rest of the city. One night we saw a water [View Full Entry]

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We got the local bus to Nong Het, near the Laos-Vietnam border. It was amusing to see how much they packed the bus - full of people and cargo, including about 20 planks of 4x2 down the aisle! Was a right laugh and I guess we were a bit of novelty, one guy took a photo of us. I much prefer travelling the proper local way compared to the tour buses. We got to the border early in the afternoon and passed through a relatively easy passport control. They didn't really check our bags that much. I expected a country like [View Full Entry]

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We stayed in Vang Vieng for another day of tubing. I can now see why people stay there as long as possible. It's a wicked place. This time we found the bar with a massive mud pit which was fantastic! On the 26th we got a local bus to Phonsavan and the Plain of Jars. I gotta say it wasn't the best journey to take on a tubing hangover, especially with the bus stinking as much as it did! Every time we stopped I had to run off to get some fresh air. I noticed the guy behind me as well [View Full Entry]

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Woke up pretty hungover but a strang fry-up later I was set for the tubing. Adam and I went with John from the bus and Andrea and Kristin we had met last night. Basically tubing is floating down a river on a tractor tyre inner tube. There are about 6-7 bars along the way you stop at. We saw some people at the first bar who we had met last night. They said then they were gonna have a day off today to recover, but obviously tubing is just that good! We had a wicked time stopping at each bar slowly [View Full Entry]

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Got a minibus today to Vang Vieng for our tubing experience. Wasn't a great journey, in the back with my knees in my chin through windy mountainous roads. The fantastic scenery made up for it though. Chatted with a cool bloke sat next to me though - John from Derby. Got to Vang Vieng 6 hours later. Got a tuk-tuk into town with the rest of the minibus crew and when we stopped, somehow in the confusion, Adam's little bag got left on the tuk-tuk's roof! Luckily after some chasing around he managed to find his bag back at the bus [View Full Entry]

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Looked round town today. Had an English brekky to start the day off but had Laos tea (still wanted to be a bit authentic). Looked round the palace and some temples today. Not as impressive as some of the ones in Thailand but still beautiful and rather fitting to the somewhat quaintness of the town. We walked up the 300 steps to the temple in the centre of the town and it was a fantastic view of the whole town. Well worth the effort! While up there a Laos girl passed us and put her arm next to mine to compare [View Full Entry]

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