Mercure Hue Gerbera

... either by the Vietnamese or the Americans during the Tet offensive of 1967. There is a massive restoration project underway by the Vietnamese to try and restore this place to its former glory but there is a long way and a lot of money to find before it is done. Even so from what was left and what they have managed to fix so far you can get an idea of what the place used to be like - the style of the buildings and the layout is very similar to the Forbidden City in Beijing. The last ...

... the war in North Vietnamese favour, is about a day's travel from here.<br><br>It was about the hottest day I've ever spent anywhere in my life so I was pleased to take a dip at China Beach previously a R&amp;R spot for GIs, and then to finally sink into the old world charms of tranquil Hoi An, which began it's existence as a major trading post in south-east Asia and was first colonised by the Portuguese.<br><br>The following day was a free one ...

... to Vinh, no longer needing a mechanic. We saw a Russian guy on a bike, who took one look at the Minsk and could not believe his eyes. He laughed, telling us to throw it away and buy a Honda. Charming!<br><br>That brings me to Monday. <br><br>We spent Monday driving for the town of Dong Hoi, which was about 150km south of Vinh. Along the way we met Adam, a 40 year old from Carlisle who was also on a Minsk. We all stayed in the same hotel that night.<br><br>The weather was getting bad ...

... est peine perdue...malgre la vision trouble autour de moi, je vois bien que le ciel est d'un bleu eclatant, pas un nuage a l'horizon, Typhon a du rejoindre vite fait le repere des cyclones avant que je puisse le debusquer.<br> <br> En attendant, moi je suis un peu deboussole...<br> Avant de m'assoupir, je commencais juste a me sentir a l'aise la ou je me trouvais. Pour le coup, rien n'etait trouble autour de moi, bien au contraire! J'etais assez proche ...

... go have a drink, and come back. I found Luke, I must have had a desperate look on my face when the first words out of my mouth were "I think I&#8217;ve lost my underwear.". He couldn&#8217;t stop laughing. I had a drink and went back out. I decided to use the ole "walk in a spiral" trick. I set my sandals where I thought they should be. For whatever reason I started on the outside and walked in. It must have been 3:30 in the morning, and at one point a little old Vietnamese guy came ...

... cave-like tunnels trying to find a way out for a while. I was getting super nervous since the tunnels were getting narrower and narrower as we neared the truer parts of the tunnels that hadn't been widened for Western bodies. Since I'm also super claustrophobic I started to panic a bit once it seemed like we couldn't find our way out but we did eventually get out as we passed by the scariest HUGE white spiders I've ever seen (and I'm not usually ...

... two fully blooming 10ft a piece deciduous trees on the back of his - much laughter among the bus!<br><br>Asian travel continues to be unpredictable. After some confusion in Hue we board a sleeper bus. These are quite an experience, two levels of tiny beds on 3 throws, nothing near as comfortable or practical as, lets say, a seat! We are at the back, sandwiched in with 3 Korean lads, it was about 8pm as we set off from Hue. We are booted off ...

... the most expensive beer), I didn&#8217;t much like the idea, but John fell for it hook, line and sinker. So after the break John got one shot, then the shark kicked into action looking like he was gonna clean up, slotting in ball after ball. After a couple of minutes I was checking the progress, when we realised the shark had potted the black, taking it for one of the spots. Well we had a good laugh as the shark came out with excuse after excuse, but ...

... to catch the child.) I catch the kid from my upper bunk and lower him to the ground....he runs back to his dad (who has just thrown him????) and crawls back in the bunk. After all this we still don't know what the heck is going on... but have surmised that perhaps this guy was hiding his kid in his bunk... and another passenger was complaining... or maybe he didn't pay for the kid to be on the bus? I don't know. Crazy times. We arrive at a rest stop.... and find out there are some ...

... to be doing after sitting on our backsides for 14 hours! <br><br>It turned out that the driver of the van had buggered off and the rest of them didn't know where he was! Remarkable. So in the end we had to take a taxi to the hotel, which I made sure they paid for, suspecting another scam... <br><br>The hotel they took us to was not the one in the book, but it was the 'sister' hotel of the one that we wanted, which was actually newer ...