Phu An Hotel Hue

... meaning 3 people on a bike- was very cosy!! Driving in south east asia is crazy to say the least. You cant really decide which side of the road they drive on and they constantly beep and hoot to get people to move out their way. My driver was good though and although I started the tour gripping his waist tightly, I soon got used ot it and held ...

... landscape however changed bit by bit as we came closer to Hue. A lot of rain was fallen and the rice fields looked like water pitches, the kind you see on a Saturday morning soccer team. The rain had fallen big time here, so why were we complaing about in Nha Trang? It could have been worse! We stopped at a little station called Nhoui Ghang...or something. The train stopped and they told us to wait for the go signal. Some people got off, but after 1 hour still..." No-Go." We ...

... of what must have been a glorious building. we met an australian girl named cath in my son and happened to bump into her here again which was pretty cool. so the three of us took off together for a bit of lunch having spent the first half of the day baking!!

we also booked a cruise / tour on the river for the following day and that was pretty cool! we visited yet more temples and tombs and i can safely say i ...

... for relax" but got no help upon entering the place. I passed a lot of school kids that were full of "hello"s and "how are you?"s, one of them had "**** you man." I don’t think he knew what it meant. Beautiful country side.

The only other highlight of Hue was actually going into the citadel and checking it out. It was pretty cool. Just a lot of old architecture and beautiful ponds. We went out a good bit. The hostel, Hue Backpackers, had free beer hour between 5 and 6 ...

... was raining so hard we could barely see two steps in front of us and admittedly all we wanted to do at this point was get dry. I had a serious case of granny toes from my feet being constantly wet, and Bill could barely keep his footing, as he was wearing flip flops.

We got back to the hotel around 5 and spent a half hour drying off. We had an uneventful evening otherwise. We did manage to watch Marley & Me, except for the ending. We turned it off before Marley dies.

... Luckily I had packed a sweater, in the case of rain. I pulled it out and covered the frilly, flower printed lump that was supposed to be my pillow. I laid my head down gently and looked around, scoping out a safe area to place my arms. The sleepers didn't have linen like others I had seen on the road. Took me awhile to settle in, especially when the bus clambered onto the bumpy roads (Very True Random Fact: Vietnam's ...

... and a couple of half-hearted buildings. Oh well again I suppose, and it was time to catch the train at 4.30 to Hanoi, arriving at what we thought would be 4 in the morning (painfully early but our only choice alas). This time we arrived with plenty of time to spare, and got ourselves settled into much preferable soft beds (as opposed to the planks of the last train). Played a bit of pictionary and charades ...

... Chiang Mai.

The highlight of Hue was actually completely random and accidental. I asked a moto driver to take me to the citadel (purely because I hadn't been on a moto yet and thought that I should, it wasn't far and I could easily have walked). We agreed a price and set off. The driver then set off in some random direction way out of town and took me to some old bridge and museum. We then headed back into ...