After our (slightly nerve-wracking) flight from Vientiene, Laos, we arrived in Hanoi and met up with our friends James and Laura who had also arrived there that day. We settled in to a hotel and had a catch up with them over dinner and a few drinks.

The next day we reserved for sightseeing, visiting the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison, where they kept some American prisoners of war during the Vietnam (or as they call it, American) War. It was quite interesting, although, as to be expected, extremely biased. There was masses of information about how the Vietnamese were tortured and abused by the French during the colonial years, but when it came to the Americans they only had photos of them all looking happy having Christmas dinner!

In the evening we went to the Water Puppet Theatre, which was a very odd experience! It was quite nice to hear the Vietnamese music, and the puppets were quite enjoyable for the first little bit, but it was a bit long I think! We had no idea what was going on as it was all in Vietnamese, we didn’t notice until afterwards that there was a little guide about which scenes were which - I think if we’d had that throughout the performance it would have made sense and we would have enjoyed it a bit more. A whole row of Chinese students behind us clearly enjoyed it, almost every one of them was fast asleep for the whole thing!

The following day we had booked to go on a tour of Halong Bay with James and Laura. We set off early in the morning, for a long minibus ride to Halong Bay where we got on the ‘Jolly Roger’ boat. We were very lucky as Pete and I and James and Laura were the only couples on board, so managed to get the biggest rooms, next to each other, with a very nice private balcony (shared between us).

We sailed out into the islands and then jumped off the boat for a swim in the water. After that, we went on a kayaking trip, paddling out to a little cave which we walked through, swimming in a lagoon at the end of it. Unfortunately, Pete cut his foot quite badly when trying to retrieve our kayak. That evening when we got back, there was a bit of a party on board - it was quite a laugh, and we had a good evening.

The next morning we transferred to ‘Castaway Island’, where we spent the day lazing about in hammocks, but we also had the chance to go banana boating! It was good fun, but much harder than it looks - the guide said we were possibly the worst group he’s ever had for falling off!

The next morning it was time for us to head back. We had a good time on this trip and enjoyed Halong Bay, although I found it a little disappointing. The scenery was lovely and on the first night there was a pretty cool storm with loads of thunder and lightning, which looked really cool over the landscape. Unfortunately the water was quite dirty, and there was quite a bit of rubbish floating around, perhaps from the hundreds of boats full of tourists, but also from the many floating villages in and around the area.

We spent the next day looking around Hanoi some more, although unfortunately it was pouring with rain the whole day. We’d hoped to go and visit Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, but our guidebook told us it was open in the afternoon when it wasn’t! Instead we visited the Ho Chi Minh museum (a bit weird and interpretive) and then to the Temple of Literature, which was only okay. The traffic in the city was pretty scary, we knew that everyone in Vietnam rode motorbikes and scooters but nothing quite prepared us for the traffic in the city! That evening we boarded the bus to Hué.

We arrived in Hué at about 8am, and found ourselves a guesthouse mentioned in the guidebook. It turned out to be a really nice one, the guy who ran it, Thang, was lovely and he and his friend took us out for the day on the back of their motorbikes to see the sights of the city. We visited several tombs, which whilst not being very old were still lovely to see and quite impressive. After stopping for some very tasty local food, we also went to the Imperial City, which was distinctly less impressive, basically a bit of a building site!

The following day Thang and his friend took us to Hoi An on motorbikes again. It was a little scary to begin with, but was a really enjoyable day. We made several stops on the way, firstly at an outdoor swimming area in a fairly fast flowing freshwater spring. The day was really hot but it was so refreshing to swim in it, you could go in by a waterfall and slide along the rocks with the current like a water slide! It was really quiet there too and we were basically the only people there.

We drove through the Hai Van pass, which is the same journey (but in reverse) that the Top Gear guys did on motorbikes - Pete was quite pleased about that! The views were great along there, and we stopped in Danang for more local food, and climbing one of the ‘Marble Mountains’.

We arrived in Hoi An at about 4 in the afternoon, giving us time to explore the town and scope out some tailors! We’d had recommendations from various people, but ended up getting measured up for suits in Kimmy’s tailors that evening. We spent all of the next few days going to various fittings with tailors - we ended up getting some stuff from a cheaper one called Lan Ha and also to their family shoe shop, as well as a store in the market for some shirts. We ended up spending quite a lot and went a bit mad, but stuff there is so cheap and everything we got was very good and well made so we were very pleased! We weren’t so pleased with how much it cost to post some of it home though!

Aside from the clothes, we both really liked Hoi An - the town is lovely, especially at night when the river is lit up from lots of lovely shops and restaurants as well as loads of Chinese lanterns, its really pretty!

After our last day we got a horrible night bus to Nha Trang, on which we barely slept at all - it was very bumpy and the driver insisted on leaning on the horn almost the whole way. We hadn’t planned to stay more than one day in Nha Trang, which is quite a nice beach resort town, but we ended up just sleeping all day in our hotel as we were so tired after the night bus! During the time we did spend wandering around though, it rained, so we didn’t even get to go to the beach.

We then got another bus to Mui Ne, and despite being irritated to start with that the bus dropped us about 3 kilometers away from the main hotel/restaurant area, we had a nice time there relaxing and sitting on the beach for a couple of days. There wasn’t a whole lot else to do there but it was nice to chill out for a bit.

We then got yet another bus to Ho Chi Minh City, and when we arrived in the backpacker area it was absolutely pouring with rain, possibly the worst downpour we’d seen in Asia! There was nowhere to shelter really, so we ended up wading through the flooded streets to find a hotel. Typically, the downpour stopped just as we arrived in the hotel door!

That evening we went out to find a local market - there was a lot of people about and a singing a dancing show going on because it was their national independence day (2nd September). The following day we went on a tour to see the Củ Chi tunnels, a short drive from the city. They’re some of the tunnels used by the Viet Cong (‘National Liberation Front’ in Vietnam) during the war. We saw various traps they used and went through a section of the tunnels.

Back in the city we were dropped outside the war remnants museum. Outside there were various bits of military hardware and a reconstruction of a famous prison where the north Vietnamese were tortured. Inside there were a series of very graphic photos documenting the various atrocities carried out against the north Vietnamese and also the effects of Agent Orange, phosphorous bombs and land mines. As you’d expect, there was nothing about anything the other way around! Upstairs though held a exhibition of images taken by some of the many photographers that lost their lives documenting the war. It was much less graphic, but also surprisingly was much less biased. After finishing at the museum we did a whistle stop tour of the other sites in central Ho Chi Minh City, such as the Notre Dame Cathedral and opera house.

The final day we had in Vietnam we did a trip to the Mekong delta, to visit some of the islands there. Unfortunately, like many cheaper tours in Vietnam, it turns into an excuse to see how many different things they can try and sell you! Still, it was quite fun and the scenery was pretty. We finally got a chance to try durian fruit too, and it turns out it does taste as bad as it smells - we then spent the entire minivan journey back to the city having to put up with the stench!

The next morning we took a bus to Moc Bai, where we crossed the border into Cambodia before heading to Phnom Penh.