Camellia Hue Hotel

... Emperor Tu Duc's tomb, a pretty Japanese bridge, war museum (consisting of a few tanks). And had a nice drive around the countryside seeing locals working and stopping to have a chat with them while drinking Vietnamese tea.
We had so much fun we decided to use the same company take us to Hoi An in a couple of days time instead of taking the bus as planned.
That night we were tired out from train and bike rides we ...

... notebook so it goes into the blog no matter how irrelevant.

Oh get a load of this, i know i'm a bit stuck on the dog meat thing but here goes. As i previously indicated, dogs are not adored pets here, they are used for safety and protection only. When they get older, they get colder so they protect their noses with their tails to keep warm so they can sleep at night. In order to keep the dogs alert, their owners cut their tails when the dogs get ...

... and when he spoke of Sweden, he always used "our" or "my country". He was 28 or 29, athletic, and very patient as Jonathon and I drilled him with questions all the way to the top of the mountains. Even though he was completely winded, he would still manage to get an answer out. We let him know how much we appreciated his openness, it was a hell of a look into an interesting life. He now works in Saigon, drives a BMW and uses an Iphone, both of which he admittedly does for status ...

... By dinner time we were feeling a bit better so went out for some food and met up with Sian and John again to say our goodbyes. A bit of a wasted day but it rained all day anyway so we wouldn't have been able to do much and we now felt refreshingly rested.

6th September
Did a city tour today and visited many sites in and around Hue. In the morning we watched prayer time at a pagoda and saw some French war bunkers on the top of a hill. After we went to ...

... 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 ...

Apart from doing all the touisty things looking at the old citadel and palaces etc, we mostly spent our time in Hue hanging out in an amazing little cafe calle Cafe on Thu Wheels, run by a beany lady called Thu. We had breakfast, lunch, dinner, beer there, and then went on a motorbike tour of the surrounding pagodas with her even beanier brother Minh. We pretty much wanted to adopt them both.

By this time we were pretty exhausted, having blitzed Camdodia and Ho Chi Minh so time for some R n R in the sunny beach town of Nha Trang. We got a sleeper bus, which was surprisingly difficult to sleep on when you're at the back lengthwise next to 4 other people with enough leg room for the average midget!
Took it easy in Nha Trang, didn't even lift my arms to take a picture.
Sleeper bus take 2 to Danang. Met a Vietnamese student who ...

... We caught a river boat back to our hotel from the Pagoda; a trip of about 15 minutes. The Perfume River is so named as it draws water from the mountains west of Hue and runs through areas previously supporting cinnamon and sandalwood plantations. We discovered that the couple running the boat lives on board with their daughter. Their 'shower’ is the river and they have a small area set aside as a kitchen. I asked about a toilet but our guide simply laughed. I ...

... the schedule never worked out) and all I can say is, I miss India trains!! Though perhaps not much cleaner, at least they were cheap, and there was always an abundance of tasty hot food (and of course chai) coming down the aisles and outside on the platforms (we quickly grew tired of eating packaged icheban-style soup) and had a much friendlier feel. The Vietnamese train staff are even worse than Air Canada flight attendants. I understand them not ...