We arrived in Sa pa by bus from Nihn Bin, however this time without a sleeping bus rather a sitting bus, surprisingly we accomplished some serious Z's. As we were leaving Nihn Bin the owner told us we would be traveling with a solo back packer. he was German, we dubbed him Chino. He was very illusive as we only managed to capture one photo of him, but he proved a good traveling partner. We had previously been told that Sa pa was the way to see the real Vietnam, so we had high expectations. To an extent we were let [View Full Entry]

---

---

The decision to go to Ninh Binh was random. It was the one area and time of the trip where we didn't have any idea or want to go somewhere in particular. From Hoi An we took a hefty cab ride through Da Nang and to the train station where we waited around and eventually got on our train to Ninh Binh. We didn't expect a lot from the train ride, however we didnt expect it to be the dirtiest, smelliest most cramped train experience we had ever had. Upon getting on the train we could not fit through the doors [View Full Entry]

---

---

We left Nha Trang once again travelling by the sleeping bus. We arrived early in the morning and got to our new hotel 'Phuoc An' half asleep. When we were arrived we were told there was no booking under 'cox'. We were both shocked as we had already paid our deposite the night before and the risk of more sleep deprevation was fueling the anger inside us both. After half an hour and extensive research on the internet, cox came to the conclusion that he had booked for october 26th 2010. Lucky for us there was an available room which we [View Full Entry]

---

---

We had one more day in Saigon so we just relaxed and waited around untill eight oclock. To pass time Stanway decided to buy a deck of cards and attempted to teach me the game 'spit'. As he begun teaching me, his vast knowledge of the game became evident through his ability to beat me within seconds. Upon noticing this i made a quick move for the computer and claimed there was more planning to be done. To get from Saigon to Nha Trang we were told we had to take a bus. Due to it being 9 hours we were [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day 2 began as we got on the bus and headed down towards the Cu Chi tunnels. The trip turned out to be longer than we thought as we went to the 'Cao Dai' temple which was a few hours away. The bus ride was great to see the other half of saigon, the country side. We soon found out that living quality only worsened as we got further out of the city. On the way we stoped of at another one of the tour guides 'arranged' stops at what appeared to be a large warehouse. We walked inside and saw [View Full Entry]

---

---

The trip began saturday the 17th of October where we lined up for around forty five minutes waiting to check in, it was a great start as the waiting was not needed at all due to me and stanway internet checking in hours before. Our mums saw us off and the trip began. I was led to believe that Stanway had some insight into the asian culture as he had been to various asian countries before. We walked onto the plane and i new stanway was on the isle side so i was stuck in the middle jammed up against what [View Full Entry]

---

---