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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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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Time to leave Hanoi again. Got the bus from the Vietnam Airlines office, and managed to get a seat – it got busy as 11:00 approached as I believe they take a break from then until 13:00 for lunch. We got talking to Hannah, a girl from Leicestershire who looks uncannily like Talia from Bristol [...]

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All good things… the last full day in Hanoi, but at least it was to be a good one. Starting with lunch in Pepperoni’s, which now has several branches in the city. I stuck to the old favourite near the hostel, though. Then off to the Temple of Literature. A biker outside the hostel had [...]

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I have been updating the blog the last few days. Please scroll down and you’ll see a fair bit added since things went wayward. I just posted the July 11th item with pictures and everything! As of this moment, I’m sat in Hanoi and we fly out for Bangkok again tomorrow afternoon. For more details [...]

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