When I wrote about the first stop on our trip, Ho Chi Minh, I casually mentioned the “frenzy of traffic”. In Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, it was just out of control. You know things are a problem when on the “Hotel information” sheet left in your room, point number one is “How to cross roads.” “How…
Tag: hanoi
Bay by Bay
Ha Long Bay is one of the most visited and photographed natural beauties of Vietnam. You would have seen pictures of rugged rocky islets jutting from emerald water, tranquil lagoons, hidden caves and communities of fisherfolk living and farming the waters on bright floating villages. You probably haven’t seen images of rubbish floating in these…
The Last Sapa
We arrived in Sapa exhausted after an 11-hour train ride on the Lotus Express to Hanoi and then a 6-hour ride on an awful bumpy sleeper bus being yelled at by a grumpy driver “NO FOOD” who was watching Vietnamese YouTube music videos the whole way. Sapa town was nothing as we had expected. I…
The City of Lanterns
The check-in of our beachside homestay five minutes from historical Hoi An was a flurry of confusion. Two old ladies showed us photos of various breakfast foods while ushering us up to our room in the traditional timber bungalow that would be our home for three nights. We decided to stay a little out of…
Good Morning Vietnam!
There’s nothing like a heady dose of a chaotic South-East Asian city to remind you you’re alive: the frenzy of traffic; the clash of glittering Cartier shopfronts manned by uniformed security guards vs. elderly squatted women wearing “non” (conical straw hats) selling cigarettes and bottled water; the heavy humidity lifting scents of rubbish, then BBQ…
The Token Traveller 