Tag: Vietnam

Visiting Vietnam… Again

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For those of you who don’t know, Mitch and I are now in Vietnam. We contemplated going back to China but we eventually decided that, for now, our Chinese adventure was over. It’s actually the second time I’ve been to Vietnam. You won’t find much about it on the blog because I started The Bristolian Backpacker after the trip. I’ve been meaning for a long time to write about my Vietnam travels, and I will at some point, perhaps this time around. Despite renowned travel blogger Nomadic Matt explaining why he’ll never return to Vietnam, I have returned to Vietnam, because, despite …

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Turning 26 on Monkey Island

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I’ve never been one to do anything big and fancy for my birthday, and so the same was true for while we were travelling. Mitch and I wanted to go on a Ha Long Bay tour and it just so happened that we booked it a few days before my birthday. After toying with different tour companies (there are hundreds offering trips to Ha Long Bay in Vietnam), we opted to go with Hanoi Central Backpackers Hostel. Unlike some more luxury boat trips, this offered a stay on Monkey Island. For us, it was a good mix between socialising and …

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Travel Planning, Blogging, and Life Post-China

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I love planning. I love lists, researching and organising, and I love the implementing of said plan. However, with travelling, I’ve come to realise that planning only gets you so far, and then you just have to go with the flow. Mitch and I planned to go to Vietnam together two years ago, but unexpected eye surgery got in the way of that. When we travel, we have vague plans, and that’s what I like. We finish our teaching jobs here in China at the end of June. Naturally, we have begun to talk about our plan for afterwards. We’ll …

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Top 3 Reasons To Visit Vietnam

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I travelled for six weeks around Vietnam in August and September 2014. I am finally going to share some thoughts with you about it. Here are my quick fire reasons for Vietnam being a must place to visit. Cost I’m generally a budget traveller so finding somewhere cheap to stay and go is important for me. Although the flights may be expensive, once you arrive in Vietnam, nothing else will be. Accommodation in a hostel with breakfast can be $5 a night (£3.20), and some even cheaper. Although I never stayed at the cheapest, they were still cheap, clean and …

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Explore, Discover, Dream: How It All Began.

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This blog was primarily about keeping my friends back home up to date, so I never really wrote much about myself as a person and how I got here. However, I have readers who don’t know me, which I still find incredible, so here’s a bit about me.

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Falling in Love With Montenegro

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We arrived in Ulcinj in mid-afternoon when the sun was shining and the wind was blowing. We headed down to the beach, where in the summer it’s packed with holiday-makers, mainly Albanian and Serbian, although also well known for German sun-seekers too. On this cool February afternoon, the resort is like a ghost town: shops and restaurants with shutters pulled down, holiday apartments with broken windows, empty beaches apart from a few odd people walking their dog or taking a stroll. I picture it in the summer: the hustle bustle of people looking for a good spot of sand, ice …

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