OK, this has become a bugbear over the last few weeks, especially as I spent so much of my time out there. I keep bumping into backpackers who’ve been to Halong Bay. This is no bad thing. It’s beautiful and there are plenty of tours (some basic, some dreadful and one awesome – not that [...]

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Last night got messy. I made the mistake of volunteering to lead a group of people up to Finnigan’s where I then made the mistake of telling Pete the barkeep that it was my last night. I was then presented with a cocktail in a flower vase. No exaggeration. As I came close to finishing [...]

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I’ve only a couple of days left here and I’ve not posted in about a month which is poor form. In fairness I have been ridiculously busy and there’s been a lot of routine to the job. In addition, there’s the “what happens in the Bay, stays in the Bay” rule. So I’ll only tell [...]

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Quick catchup. After several tours of Halong Bay, I’ve had 2 days of to recuperate. And I needed them. Yesterday I stayed up till 4:00am to watch England be crap, then rose at 8:30am as I can’t sleep for more then 4 hours at present. I collared James, a chap from the US, and we [...]

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I’d expected to post more while I was out here, but I’ve been incredibly busy with work so simply haven’t had the chance. I’m working as a Tour Guide for the Hanoi Backpackers’ Hostel which is a 6-on-1-off working week. When I’m “on”, I’m away at Ha Long Bay with no internet and I don’t [...]

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I hooked up with another backpacker, Chris, not long after I arrived. He’s currently trying to offload a Minsk motorcycle that he’s been using for the last month or so. In the meantime, he’d planned a day trip out up the Red River Valley. Seemed like a nice idea, so I hopped out and rented [...]

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Good news is that I’ve been granted a leave of absence from university so that I can head off abroad a couple of weeks earlier than otherwise. The bad news is that in waiting for this to come through, all my flight prices went up. Sometimes it’s better to just do stuff and worry later, [...]

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All of these hints are from personal experience of a recent (August 2009) round trip from Ho Chi Minh City through Mui Ne, Nha Trang, Da Lat and back again. We used one bike between two of us, a small-ish automatic, and covered around 1100km in six days. Don’t take too much luggage. It increases [...]

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My last day in Vietnam and the last proper day of my trip. A sad day, as ever, more-so due to some events back home over which I had no control, but that is for another blog. To cheer myself up I hopped on a xe om up to the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation to [...]

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The longest day riding, and overall one of the longest days of my stay in South Vietnam. We set off from Da Lat at 7:45am with the aim of getting to Ho Chi Minh City by early evening. The route is quite simple – you follow the “20″ which leads you directly from the mountains [...]

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