I had the opportunity to go out for a few hours of peaceful shopping and found a coffee shop to sit and read the paper and my new book on Taiwan.  Bliss! That same day we met up with Karin and Edward, a couple we met on the Halong Bag,...

Steve and I spent one week in HK two years ago so it was great to return to somewhere familiar and to be able to rest after our busy 6 weeks in Vietnam. The two bedroom flat we stayed in was a fantastic base for the week, complete with washing machine and mini kitchen.  I even cooked!  We had home-made spag bolg and mac’n’cheese plus I could have my favourite porridge every...

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I am busy finishing off our adventures in Vietnam for everyone to read.  Soon we will update you on our travels through Hong Kong; with plans for Taiwan and China on our list of...

We awoke for our first full day of adventure in Hong Kong.  We had a few things we wanted to see and do in Hong Kong with the boys that Steve and I enjoyed when we were here two years ago.  One of those was the cable car ride to see the Big Buddha.  The weather was not the best but we wanted to do the excursion before it got crazily busy since the 10th May is Buddha’s...

We were all up, organised and out the hotel door early for our flight from Hanoi to Hong Kong.  We were flying Vietnam Airlines again and this would be our first flight with a meal!  We made it smoothly through the whole check-in, immigration stuff and prepared to sit and wait; which ended up longer than anticipated due to some airport issue.  Finally onboard and off we...

Our journey to Hanoi got off to a very slow start.  The weather in Hue was so foggy and probably smoggy too, that the plane arriving from down south had to divert to Danang before landing in Hue before we could finally board to go to Hanoi.  We sat in the Hue airport for 2 extra hours. iPods kept the boys entertained whilst waiting. Steve and I read and used the wifi...

We woke in the morning and found our way to the breakfast area and had a less than mediocre breakfast – really it was dismal.  When you encourage your children to eat the fresh hot chips/French fries for breakfast as the best option that certainly sends a message about the quality of the food on offer!

We checked out gladly. Our guide took us to see a pagoda on a hill. ...

Our last little adventure in Vietnam was to travel from Hanoi, south to Tam Coc and Coc Phuong National Park. After another hotel breakfast and having packed up our bags we were picked up at our hotel by the tour driver and guide. Our guide was a young guy called Jery Tom. He introduced himself as Tom and Jerry, as in the cartoon cat and mouse, and told us that his mother...

To get to Sapa you take a sleeper bus or a train. Most tourists spend one night on the train, one night in Sapa and one night back on the train.  We were adding an extra night in Sapa to extend the journey a little. We caught the night train from Hanoi to Lao Cai, which is a one hour drive from Sapa. The first adventure was trying to ‘cash in’ our voucher for the actual...

Our English speaking guide met us at our hotel in Hanoi and helped us out to the waiting minivan. The van was already quite full of people but we there was room to squeeze in 4 more with bags of course.  What a boring ride to Halong City.  The rice paddies are always a lovely site but the dirty, dingy, smoggy small towns along the way with a many industrial buildings and...