Hoi an 8th-11th August, Hué 11th-13th, Da Nang 13th-14th, Halong Bay 14th-16th and Hanoi 16th-17th August:

We arrived in hoi an in good time from nha trang, as we flew to da nang airport so we could skip the 12 hour bus ride. Hoi an was not a great place for me, the first day we had there I was ill for most of it due to eating dodgy fruit but I only seemed to enjoy the city at night. It was beautiful, we put candles on the water and wondered around the city decorated with beautiful lanterns, Daniel explored some of the temples without me in the day and thought they were beautiful also. On the last day in Hoi an we booked an Eco tour, this included going to the markets and learning how to haggle down a price for food and seeing how the locals produce their products. It was interesting to see how the locals handled their produce and what was on sale, after the market we were taken on a small boat that took us to a river leading down to the restaurant that was going to teach us how to cook. However to get there we had to take a small coconut boat, it was a great experience paddling through the mangrove forests to the cafe, an experience I won't forget! The cooking was educational for us Brits because as the culture is so different, it's amazing to see how the food was produced and we got to experiment with so many new foods, it was wonderful! Hoi an was soon spoilt by our hostel, they tried to charge daniel 32,000 dollars on his card and they weren't very co operative with other guests on important matters so when asked by others if they should stay here, we told them no and to make matters worse we had to get on a bus with no air conditioning for four hours. We were not happy.

However when we got to Hué, we settled down and became happy again after a shower and some chill time, we didn't explore much of Hué that night due to being exhausted from the journey. We only had one day in Hué, so we decided to travel on a boat to a famous tower where they trained monks in a chapel, there was not much to see in Hué besides that and the imperial city which wasn't particularly thrilling due to much of it being re done so it lost its authenticity. Luckily for us we found a lovely coffee shop that made smoothies for around 32,000 dong which is less than a pound in Britain! The atmosphere was calming and the air conditioning was welcoming.

We travelled back to Da Nang to catch a flight to Hanoi on the 14th, we only stayed a night in Da Nang and it's just a very busy city ! We didn't get to see much of it but we could tell it would be a bit much for us.

Halong bay on the 14th of August was a complete mare to get too, we arrived at Hanoi airport and a taxi driver claimed to know where he was going when we told him to go to the bus station but instead he took us to the train station and so we had to get another taxi to the actual bus station where we got a local bus to halong bay. The local buses are interesting but the locals were surprisingly welcome towards us and bought us some guava, our hotel was a three star which we only found out until we got there and it was a lovely break from the hostels we had had before. We booked a boat trip to halong bay for the next day, the situation we have noticed most in vietnam is that they never tell you what's going on, you are left waiting around for ages not knowing what's happening and you never know who to ask as no one seems to be in charge. We waited an hour and a half to finally get on a boat, the hosts weren't very nice but it didn't matter as the experience of halong bay was just out of this world. We were able to kayak through some of the islands and we have never been somewhere so silent and peaceful, we also visited a cave which was also breathtaking due to the size and scale of the rocks. The whole experience was a great way to end Vietnam for us, we would recommend it to anyone. For dinner, we tried out a bbq place recommended on trip advisor, you order a platter of meat and it is cooked right in front of you and we got to try new things also. Even though we stayed in a very nice hotel, we were never able to get much sleep due to a rooster making noises from about 4am each day, it was hilarious but horrible.