Virle had a rougher night of it than me, sleeping fitfully on the bus, which proved to be a fairly elderly sleeper, lacking basic amenities like curtains to keep out the LED displays which seem to adorn...

The bus for Cat Ba isn’t till seven this evening, so we decided to take a little trek up to the viewpoint above Ha Giang. And it did prove quite a trek – up and up and up to the top of what...

Day four dawned much better than day three. No mortar attack. Instead, a nice breakfast of fried egg and pancakes with banana and honey, then back on the road for the return to Ha Giang city. A pretty...

THUD! Unh? THUD! Virle: What the goodness gracious was that? (I paraphrase.) THUD! RATATATATATAT! THUD! I grope for my phone. It’s 7am and we appear to have come under mortar attack.  The noise seems...