We woke to a modern arrangement of Fur Elise piped in through the PA around 0530. There are worse ways to be woken up. Our arrival into Lao Cai (next to the Chinese border) was uneventful. We found the shuttle desk for Sapa easily and bought our tickets. We waited briefly for the van to […]

There’s nothing touristy in Hanoi that we wanted to do as we “did it all” only a year ago. Perfect for shopping and relaxation then! Over the last couple of years, I find myself holding pages further and further away as I read. Last year, Kim found glasses in Hanoi to be of extremely good […]

We had chosen the 1730 flight to Hanoi to avoid an early wake-up. The day went pretty quickly with a walk around town, checking-out, a massage and late lunch before using the shuttle to the airport. The shuttle at VND40,000 per person was a great deal as taxi would have been rather pricey with the 30km […]

We rented a motorbike to explore the area today. First stop was Crazy House, a house-cum-hostel designed by a Vietnamese lady-architect who graduated from Moscow. The style is similar to Gaudi and Hunderrwasser. Each hostel room is in a different style and there are walkways linking the different buildings. Some big strong Russian men were […]

Above:  Downtown Dalat.  It was either a 0630 bus or a 1230 one from Mui Ne to Dalat. That proved to be an easy decision for the latter. It turned out to be a door-to-door service like the last bus; we were picked up outside our hotel around 1300 as the bus had to do […]

I had allowed one day too many in Mui Ne.  Doesn’t matter.  It’s time for a real holiday after being “on the go” for so much over the last two months.  Sleep in, eat, massage, eat …  

We have two full days here in Mui Ne. It seemed like a good idea to dedicate one day for nothing (tomorrow) and make use of today’s good weather for exploring. We rented a motorbike and rode out to the white sand dunes up the coast and also the red ones. We then backtracked down […]

Tourism in Vietnam is very well organised and customer-focused; we didn’t have to go to some station to catch our bus to Mui Ne. Buses leave from outside various hotels and travel agencies in the backpacker district. The journey to Mui Ne took less than 5 hours, the first half of which was crawling in […]