Goodbye, Vietnam

In my four weeks in Vietnam, I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. The people have been some of the kindest and friendliest I've met, the scenery and cities have been thrilling and the food has been an adventure on its own. While Thailand will always be my first love, I will really miss Vietnam and I'm already excited about going back. So much of the country is completely untouched by tourism.

Vietnam's language has made a big difference too. Because they use the latin alphabet, I've been able to learn far more Vietnamese in one trip than I have in 4 trips to Thailand. Of course most of my vocabulary is food-based, but that means I can order meals in places where no-one speaks any English and I can mostly understand their menus.

Anyway, I flew back to Bangkok and headed straight to Hua Lamphong train station to buy a ticket for the night train to Chiang Mai. Not only were they sold out but also for next day's train! Luckily flights are only a few pounds more expensive so I headed down to Chinatown and checked in to the guesthouse I'd stayed at in December. It was nice being somewhere familiar although a fair few places were closed ahead of the New Year.