Dong Hoi and Danang

My time in Hanoi coming to an end I decided to head south in search of the beautiful Paradise Cave, one the largest cave networks in Asia. The first night i arrived turned out to be rather eventful as no sooner had i arrived at a hostel then i was out the door with fellow backpackers to dance the night away.

The next day, feeling slightly hung over I set out on a tour of the caves. Our first stop was a magical boat ride through the heart of the cave system itself, through which an actualriver flowed. The cave network was beautifully lit and marvellously surreal, like floating through the belly of some deep sea creature.

This was only a taste of things to come as the next stop took us via buggie to the entrance of a jungle cave, the space inside was gianomous, a massive airhanger like space, where staggities fought rock formations in an epic struggle to impress us travellers the most.

Throughly pleased with my tour of Dong Hoi I set off for my next adventure. What was intended to be brief stop over turned out to be a full blown stop. As i decided to meet up with a friend in the glamourous city of Danang, with wide open beaches, next to no western tourists and wide open roads Danang felt almost like it could be the LA of Vietnam. I spent an extremely enjoyable evening there playing darts, admiring the sea and the fabulous dragon bridge (which spat both fire and water) and discovering one of the best undiscovered cities that Vietnam had to offer.

Vietnam: The hills of Sapa

 After the (fairly ) rushed pace of the Harlong Bay tour I took a days break in Hanoi to relax before booking an overnight bus to the mountainous region of Sapa.

After the unique experience of taking the sleeper bus, I took a quick snooze before heading to explore the mountain town. The first impression was one of overwhelming beauty, in Sapa huge alps like hills are cut with layer after layer of rice paddies. Tribe people wander the town in the most colourful outfits imaginable and the rivers that run through the forests turn into spectacular waterfalls.

I started my first day's trek by exploring one of the local villages, where they sold the most lovely clothes imaginable. I then treked down through the town to a nearby waterfall, by this point I was ready to have lunch so I sat enjoying the scene and talked to the friendly locals who provided my lunch. They advised me to stick around until the performance of a local traditional dance, in which the tribal girls danced coquettishly with their male counterparts.

To round off the day I took a walk through the hills that ran from the centre and found a particularly lovely and isolated trail through the undergrowth. I stopped by the nearby river and just enjoyed the view.

After a night spend teaching English to local orphans and enjoying the delicious food there I took a tour to the famous flower market, where every possible product, animal and item of clothing vied with the local people to be the most spectacular sight there. We then took a tour through a traditionally village before returning to relax and enjoy the Christmas festivities in the local town square.

I took one final day to relax and wander around the region of Sapa before booking my bus on to my next destination.

Vietnam: Harlong bay

Travelling to the north east of Vietnam, i decided to tour the many limestone islands of Harlong Bay. To do so I booked a tour with my local hostel and was soon sailing through the dramatic limestone islands that pierced the seas of North East Vietnam.

Our tour guide was friendly and helpful and the food served aboard our small boat was delicious. The first day I spent in the Bay itself was spent touring the dramatic "amazing cave" located inside on of the limestone casts. It was huge and  lit with the most amazing colours and our guide talked us through the formation of this dramatic structure.

 After this we scaled one of the island hills to taken in the vista of our dramatic surroundings before being whisked away to kayak into the setting sun. We finished our canoeing trip by padding through a cave up to 'monkey island', which more then lived up to its name as we got to view the monkeys first hand cavorting through the trees that covered the island.

As the sun set we enjoyed dinner on the boat before being rocked to sleep by the lull of the waves. The next day was one of relaxation, as we sunbathed on the deck on our way back to Hanoi.

Impressionistic photography: how I stopped worrying and learned to love blur

I was showing my photography to another traveller the other day and his response amused me:

"Its all blurry" he said.

"Yes" I said.

"If you used the window ledge you could hold the camera steady" he suggested.

"Why would I want to do that?" was my response.

The truth is many travellers I meet have a similar response, why on earth would I want to take a blurry image when I could take a crisp, sharp one? The simple truth is that I rather like blur, I like its dreaminess, its trippiness, its ability to convey speed, beauty and the mercurial nature of the world.

To be rather snobby on the issue, let other photographers keep their crisp, clean reality. I want to create a dreamy other world for people to explore.

Good morning Vietnam

After a few days spent bumming around Bangkok doing nothing particularly touristy (I watched The Hunger Games and had a Mcdonalds) I decided it was time to go somewhere new. Boy did I hit the ground running with Vietnam.

Hanoi was hectic, stressful and overwhelmingly eventful, but it was also spiritual, cultured, vibrant and exotic. In other words it was love at first sight. I spent the first half of the day wandering the streets of the old quarter. I explored temples tucked into corners, walked past streets packed with shops selling things based on themes (such as christmas decorations, childrens clothing and in one particularly beautiful example and entire street packed with flowers).

After all this excitement I was ready to head somewhere a bit more meditative so I visited the beautiful Bach Ma temple. Wonderfully decorated and filled with buddhist statues, ancient poetry, the waft of people giving incense and writhing with dragons that decended from pillars set into the rooftops it was a place of awe inspiring beauty.

After visiting the temple I parked my bum on one of the many street vending stalls and had my first taste of Vietnamese food. It turned out to be both variably in cost and flavour, ranging from the exquisite to the awful (as fitting a metaphor for Vietnam as you'll as likely to find).

I felt the need for something a bit more laid back after this so I headed for one of the many lakes in the city of Hanoi. It was an ocean of calm in an otherwise hectic city and I spent a good hour or two there relaxing and watching the comings and goings of the city.

I felt by the time I left Hanoi that it was time to go somewhere more relaxing so I decided upon the verdant hills of Sapa.