After more than 2 weeks in Hanoi, albeit with excursions to Sapa and Halong Bay, I was getting decidedly twitchy, it was time to be on the road again. Everything was timed to perfection, we had said goodbye the night before to the lovely girls that looked after us so well in Le Petit Hotel Hanoi, we had a leisurely breakfast and the taxi was there right on the dot of 7.30 to take us to the airport. I'm always a little suspicious when everything runs so smoothly and today would prove that my instincts are good. I checked in without a problem, Hanoi airport is probably one of the more efficient airports on the planet. Lis wasn't due to check in for another hour so we waited a while then I made my way through ... read more

The French quarter borders lake Hoan kiem to the south east and is an altogether quieter and more sophisticated part of the city with wide, tree-lined boulevards, and flash hotels and eateries and shops to keep the rich from getting bored. It has none of the hustle and bustle and vibrancy of the narrow streets of the Old Quarter. The grandest of the hotels looks to be the Hotel Metropole, built in 1901, with Bentleys, Mercedes and Lexus parked outside it is still the place to see and be seen. As in Paris, the streets in the French quarter all converge on one spot, in this case at the very elegant Opera House. After stopping for coffee in a cafe in the park beside the opera house it was back to reality and a lunch of ... read more

Our guide from yesterday, I now know that her name is spelt Dao but pronounced Yioau, met us just before 9.00am and we were joined by a young couple from Holland, 4 Italians and the 2 older Germans from yesterday. Today was a 12km hike along roads and through rice fields with a lot of ups and downs. It was, mercifully, a beautiful sunny day or the trails would have been deadly. The views were absolutely breathtaking, like something out of one of the advertising brochures, with terraced rice fields rising hundreds of metres up the sides of steep mountains. It beggars the mind to think of the local people rising at 4 or 4.30am then traipsing for 3 or 4 kilometres, pretty much all of it uphill, to put in a hard days graft in ... read more

Packed our bags and checked out of the hotel then headed off to the Vietnamese women's museum which, from the posters in the entrance way looked suspiciously like the museum of hairy legged feminism but did in fact turn out to be very interesting. It covered everything from the varying marriage customs in the differing ethnic groups through child birth, naming ceremonies and bringing up of children. They also covered off the Vietnamese women's part in the various conflicts and the dress and customs of the many ethnic minorities. Well worth having a look despite initial impressions. At that point we were in dire need of sustenance and found a great patisserie just over the road. Suitably fortified with freshly baked croissants and all manner of other goodies along with a couple of coffees we ventured ... read more

Yesterday was another test of endurance with a 14 hour train trip. It wasn't all bad though, the scenery in the north of Vietnam is very different to the Plains and rice fields of the South. They still have rice fields but also have stunning mountains and karsts and rivers flowing through narrow valleys with water buffalo everywhere. The journey was also made more bearable by the 12 year old girl in the seat next who had been learning English at school for only 2 years but was a great conversationalist. With a bit of help from Google translate we got on famously as she told me all about Vietnam, Ba Na hill station in particular, where her family had just been on holiday, and Vinh city where she lives. As we neared Vinh city she ... read more