Day 15 Basically a day of shopping. After an early-ish breakfast to say goodbye to most of our travelling companions, we used a Grab car to get into town. Vesna, our friend from the tour group, came with us. Ruth had made an appointment to get a tattoo done, so we delivered her to the…

Day 14 Apologies for the delay. Yesterday got a little busy. We were up early to watch the sun rise on Ha Long Bay. There were fishing boats around us. We went off in a boat at 7 am to visit a nearby cave complex. Sung Sao cave? Climbed a million steps from the water’s…

Day 13 Another quiet one. We left Tam Coc and travelled by bus for about 4 hours. Lots of rice fields, and we finally got to see some of the enormous factories Vietnam is famous for. We were basically following the Red River down to its delta, so there is a lot of manufacturing here…

Day 12 A quiet and restful day After breakfast, we went off in our little bus, and drove for about an hour. We drove through rice fields and many acres of pineapples. We visited the Cuc Phuong National Park. The objective of the visit was to see the rescue and conservation work being done to…

Day 11 After leaving the hotel this morning, we spent a pleasant couple of hours learning about traditional Vietnamese water puppets. We went to the home of a famous puppeteer Mr Lim, in the minute back streets of Hanoi. He did an amazing puppet show for us, and let us have a go at playing…

Day 10 Th day we first arrived in Hanoi… We were up very early to leave the hotel at 6.30. We caught a flight from Hue to Hanoi. Hanoi has 10 million people, so it is large and sprawling. There doesn’t appear to be much zoning of land as there are market garden areas right…

Day 9 A day of monasteries and temples Still raining most of the time here in Hue. Apparently Hue is the rainiest place in all of Vietnam… This morning we visited the Thien Mo pagoda, a Buddhist temple north of the Perfumed River. Built in 1601, it includes a number of temple buildings. Really lovely…

Day 8 The day we got to Hue… We left Hoi An at about 8.30 and travelled up the coast past Da Nang, with its famous China Beach. Lots of resorts. We stopped briefly to see the Dragon Bridge. The coastline is quite pretty. We ascended a high mountain pass on a very windy road,…

Day 7 A day of learning things We had a very relaxed start to the day. A late breakfast and a chance to chill. We headed for town (the hotel is a little bit out of Hoi An old town) about 9.30, and went a cooking class at the Green Mango restaurant. We learnt 4…

Day 6 A day of learning about things… Today we went out to one of the islands near Hou An to see how people make a living from the land. The first home we visited was a rice wine distillery. We saw how rice is ground and roasted and then fermented with yeast for a…