Bac Ha Markets Pic set 2 (click on Image to enlarge)

Our Vietnam trip has just passed the half way point,and this morning we arrived in Nha Trang after a overnight bus trip. Our travel to date has been:
Hanoi
Bah ha Market (day visit)
Sapa (1 Night)
home stay near Sapa (1 night)
Hanoi (6 nights total)
Hue    (2nights)
Hoi An (2 nights)
Nha Trang (3 nights)
In Hanoi we stayed in the Atrium Hotel and had a few rooms, with the best room being room 505 on the fifth floor with a nice big airy window  The owner said it was her best room.
Most people visiting Hanoi only get to see the main sites and the old quarter. Lake etc.
With so much time in Hanoi we were able to get out and about, catching local buses to see different shopping centres like the Big C and Royal City.
Royal City is a massive brand new shopping complex with several housing towers surrounding it.
Lots of upmarket shops, but, no one was shopping in them. Cont Below...

all images below are at the market until new caption added

 

After Hanoi we started our trip south on a overnight bus.  We had purchased a open ticket and had added two extra stops to a basic ticket (USD 42) to USD 54 these extra stops took us from the coast to Dalat then back to the coast. eight years ago the same open ticket cost us USD 17, but these sleeper buses used now a days give you a actual bed for the night on the long haul trips. and wifi is included.
Hue was our first stop, as we had been there before so we decided two nights there was enough.

After the markets we visited a small village to see how the locals live,
These girls are twins and they really knew how to ham it up to the visitors cameras

Lining up for a Australian lolly pop and a pen 

                                         

A Asian lady on our tour could not believe that Teresa came prepared with goodies for the kids, she was very impressed

As our tour headed towards Sapa we stopped at the boarder bridge crossing
into  China. We had crossed this bridge in 1998 heading to Vietnam from China.