Thang Long Hue

We arrived in Hue City early and went for a visit to the Citadel and to the backpackers food/bar area - very good.  The train journey was not good as the train was very tatty and hot, but only 13 hours so we coped!!


A quiet day and up early for a day on motorbikes!!

6th November - 8.30 pick up - a convoy of 15 of us on pilion -pouring with ...

... br>
Hu e is a pretty little city, very peaceful after the crazy Hanoi. We rented bicycle for 18000 Dong (0.40 AUS$ or MYOC Make Your Own Conversion ;-) ) to visit this fortified city Where the N'Guyen Dynasty ruled Vietnam before Ho Chi Min took over...
For more info www.wikipedia.com or your own dictionnary ! ;-)

... and match the charm of many of the old colonial buildings.

It's impossible not to be aware of Vietnam's recent history as a divided nation which has been occupied by colonists for the past thousand years. The Chinese had the longest run and China and Vietnam still have a troubled relationship and even had a short war in the 80's over border issues. Things however are improving with excellent trade relations as Vietnam is becoming one ...

... the will of the VNese to get to end of job. Now, to all those out there who called me a dragon lady, you see it's not my fault, it's my heritage.

On this, i have to go take a shower because someone's going to kick me out of this hotel if i don't. Pierre and i wish you all a magnificent and safe long Thanksgiving weekend. And today is the day, my friends, my little bonhomme is officially on his pre-retirement leave of absence after a few weeks of vacation.

... not just there for us tourists. We also got to visit a bee farm (no, there isn’t anything different about making honey in Vietnam), try some rice wine, that knocks tequila off the top of the worst drinks list and spend several hours chugging up and down the Mekong river watching the locals go about their business. It was a great trip and set a standard that was hard to beat. Having said that we would try hard to top it.
Next up was Hanoi. Hopefully I got across to you how ...

... to do is confidently cross the road making eye contact with the oncoming hoard of motos and they'll dodge around you... well you hope. :-D

Here we visited a Temple on the lake where there's a turtle said to still live in the lake.

We ventured out of town to Snake Village where we both held a snake. Then they asked if we wanted to eat the poor little ...

... We also went and got tickets for the water puppet show that evening and after running into two English girls (Kate and Dani) from our two day slow boat ride in Laos, ended up booking our three day two night Halong Bay tour with them. Nicole and I also booked our overnight sleeper bus ticket from Hanoi to Hue. The water puppet show was great. It is literally puppets but in water (traditionally performed on ...

... the Perfume pagoda wasn't actually a pagoda, but a big stalagmite. This was just a prime example of turning something natural into a religious edifice, and having people throw money at it. Both of us were not too impressed. Lots of stalactites followed, apparently having different meanings such as wealth and fertility. At this point I think both of us were thinking that 50 USD would have been better spent elsewhere. Ah well. At least ...

Back to Hanoi, where we have found the corner where all of the westerners drink beer! We actually asked for that corner and somebody showed us where it was!! The beer is 3000 dong, thats about 6 or 7 glasses for 1 pound back home!! Also the kebabs on this corner are pretty tasty.

... and had some time to re-pack our bags for the night train south.

We also had a bit of time to look at flights to the beaches of Phu Quoc Island (to the south west of Ho Chi Minh City) where we're going to hopefully relax before we fly to Hong Kong and then back to the U.K. for Milly's wedding in a couple of weeks.

We just had time to grab some nice ...