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...

We caught the bus from Hoi An to Hue and chose a different bus company that didn’t make you stop at the Marble Mountains again.  We passed through the unattractive city of Danang on our way north and then we were treated to some beautiful views of the countryside, mountains and ocean.  We went through a huge tunnel which cut out a lot of twisty turns on the road … which I...

Hoi An – what a quaint little place to spend a few days. The boys were most excited to discover that our hotel for the next 3 nights had a pool right outside our room. Their first priority upon arrival was to swim and refresh after our Marble Mountain walk and car journey. 

Then it was time to walk the streets of Hoi An. First stop, a tailor shop recommended by the hotel...

We arrived in Danang at about 6 pm so promptly got a taxi to our hotel. We stayed at the Hoa Viet Hotel and got a triple room – 3 double beds! What a great treat. Harris and Patrick each had a huge bed which left Steve and I with a bed to ourselves.  The funniest thing about the room was that the porter proudly put on all the lights in the room turned into a blue light...

The road to Dalat started out ok and then became rough, winding, riddled with potholes and piles of gravel too high to drive over to fill the potholes; roadwork machinery that we drove around and under; little in the way of line markings, crazy traffic and our even crazier bus driver who barely slowed down to take the many hairpin turns! Better to have my head down writing...