Celadon Palace Hue

Hue was incredubly wet. The first time it had really rained non stop throughout the day!! Even though I was petrified, I agreed to go on a motorbike tour to see how the vietnamese hats are made, how incense is made and the paddy field. Was actually really good fun, although my bike broke down so I had to go on the back of another bike for a little ...

... whatsoever on anyone, nobody pays it any attention. Buses, trucks and cars are continually using the lane of oncoming traffic to pass slower vehicles. The guide thought it was good to share with us that there are 13 deaths on VNese highways every day, how comforting.<br><br>So here we are on our way to the demilitarized zone or the DMZ. This line was drawn at the 17th parallel on the Ben Hai river at the centre of the country and the zone is 5 kms ...

... side of the bridge. Same-same train and everybody used his same-same train ticket and sleeper coach.!! If this would have happened any where in Europe there would have been Murder and Shouting and maybe even debates in Parliament!! But not here.! Brilliant, simpels, and all quiet and happy! Well done Vietnam..!!<br><br>So we moved on, a bit of delay for all of us but at least we moved again. Rebecca stopped at Hue around 8pm. Very late and dark..the town looked a bit "Ghosty ...

Picked up by our 2 drivers from Hue Riders at 9am to go off exploring. The bikes were really cool &amp; more like Harleys &amp; even had a backrest which I hadn't seen in Vietnam yet. My driver was Quy ( pronounced Kwee) &amp; it cost us $10 US each for the day. We had met Quy last night at Phuong Nam Cafe which we noticed as we walked past, as I had ...

... believed in. We stayed on the fringe, I saw some really cool looking people inside eating. They sported brown cloaks, some of the guys had grown out their bangs to about 8 inches and the hair was pressed against their heads. There were "swastikas" on the fence outside, I didn&#8217;t feel comfortable snapping pics of anything inside but there was a really neat structure that I wouldn&#8217;t mind to have photographed. At the top of it was a yin yang. We decided to head out, but not ...

... ed into some crazy artwork. It was quite flamboyant, apparently much like the emperor who now lies buried there. Later on in the tour we stopped at a &#8220;Conical Hat and Incense Stick Making Village&#8221; which was nothing but a store on the side of the road. We did watch a young woman<br>rolling a big wad of some dark, lumpy substance which we took to be incense. We didn't buy anything--ditto during another stop at a &#8220;Sesame Candy and Tea Making Village&#8221; (store ...

... today, resides within the thick, concrete walls, surrounded by a moat. Though a large part of the citadel was badly bombed during the French and American wars, there are still some lovely buildings to see and thankfully the Vietnamese government is slowly restoring damaged sections to their original condition. As I walked the grounds, workers, both men and women, labored away sanding doorways, cleaning intricate carvings ...

... to take us six hours took nine! Whoops! We headed our hotel where we shared private rooms rather than getting a dorm and headed to the nearest restaurant for dinner.The motorbike experience was definitely one of the most thrilling and probabaly dangeous things I've ever done in my life. The excitement of navigating the roads of Vietnam and passing through gorgeous landscape was one of my favorite travel experiences of my life.<br><br>Although now I am already finished with Hoi Anm as I write ...

... with many monuments, paved areas and beautiful lakes and streams. The poor guy had 104 wives and many concubines but unfortunately no children. Luckily for him though, he commissioned the building of this tomb during his lifetime and thus was able to enjoy the serene space for many years before his death.<br><br>From the tomb we went on to visit the ancient Citadel built in 1804, fortified home to the many Nguyen Kings. The citadel is surrounded by 10km of red ...

... I finally had someone to talk FOOTBALL with... HALLELUJAH! <br><br>Thankfully Liverpool have a couple of good Dutch players and one of the Dutch boys was also a Liverpool fan, so that was a fun 10 minutes for me. (I didn't know that we'd been held at Anfield by Chelsea at that point, otherwise we'd have been a bit less happy!) <br><br>Eventually we got back to Hanoi, late ...