Leah is now sleeping somewhere over the Pacific, on a flight back to San Francisco. Yesterday we had our teary, bittersweet farewell, drawn out to span three meals and several misty locales around the Old City which we hardly noticed, lost in our talk of past and future, and culminating in a promenade through the tumult of the departure lounge a...

Love Hanoi - buzzing and pulsing like a light reflected off a disco ball. People - nice. Food - cheap and tasty. Beer - less than $1. Tourists - here and there, but not everywhere. The Ho Chi Ming Mausoleum - satisfyingly communist. The museum - surprisingly modern and tasteful. There is a map of the world that reveals that it is not Bulgaria I ...

I'm officially a millionaire now! US$1 = 16000 Dong. Draft Beer = 3000 Dong! Let me backtrack for a second: In Nanning I met the british guy from Yungshuo again... he was staying in the same hotel as me! We decided to make our way to Hanoi together. We got up at the leasurly hour of 8 o'clock and thought that after breakfast we'd sort out our bu...

The hotel we had booked turned out to be rubbish. Unfortunately we were very naive and payed the full amount for the 5 nights we had booked - up front. We had checked the room over prior to handing over cash. We were prepared to put up with it - we were not prepared to put up with the building work that started at 6am. The builders must of had a...

PS from Patrick: During our travels we use the "Lonely Planet" guidebook (one for each country) and another one (usually the "Rough Guide") so that we can compare recommendations and not end up on the same tourist trail as everybody else. The very comprehensive guide "Southeast Asia on a shoestring" which the younger backpackers have with them h...

Today is my first day of work. I woke up today at about 8:30. You'd think that that would be on the late side for one's first day of work. And now it's 11am, and my work day doesn't start for another 3 and a half hours. My kind of schedule! It is a little strange though...to be killing time for 5 hours before my first day starts. You know how th...

So we were back in Hanoi for one more night before heading north to Sapa. After a relaxing trip to Halong Bay where we did not need to think about trying to plan our activities, meals, etc., we were ready to give Hanoi another chance. Since we were now prepared for what to expect, we found some fun activities: - eating the Ca Cha Vong, a restau...

We're back at Hanoi after an enjoyable 3 days in Sapa, awaiting our flight back to Bangkok (on the 3rd of July). We're spending our time waiting for the rain to stop, wandering about the city a little bit, playing with Facebook (Omri) and thinking about what memoires to buy here...

Our last night in Vietnam - it has flown by so quickly and I am really sad that our time here is almost over. On the plus side, we do get to spend ~24hrs in Hong Kong on our way home and I am very pumped about that. We flew from Hue to Hanoi on Thursday night on Vietnam Airlines... I won't bore everyone with the nitty gritty of the flight detail...

The first thing I noticed was how much cooler it was in Hanoi. It's a fair way up north, and I was glad to have been forewarned by Michael to wear long pants. So here I was, solo, having traded my suitcase in for a big backpack, heading on a completely different type of adventure. As I expected, I was greeted by innumerable cries of 'Taxi?' as I...