24th April 2010 The train journey from Lao Cai to Ha Noi last night was a nightmare and neither of us slept a great deal. Luckily we shared a cabin with an Australian couple who were really nice and we chatted with them for a while before turning in, but once the lights were out, the lurching movement of the train and the smells of smoke coming from the toilet didn’t help with sleeping. We arrived in Ha Noi pretty tired. ...
19th April 2010 Typically, today was the first day of sunshine on our Halong Bay trip. We awoke on our island paradise and don’t get me wrong, it was a paradise setting, even if we were woken up at 6.45am with the builders starting work for the day. We weren’t even allowed a peaceful breakfast, with drills and saw benches going. The boat to transfer us back to Cat Ba island arrived around 9am, so we all loaded our kit back onto the boat and made the short crossing back to Cat Ba Island. We were met by the minibus which took us back across the island to where we boarded a bigger junk which would take us back to Ha Long City. ...