Thanh Lich Hotel Hue

... the banks were still burst following the monsoon weather but people rarely mentioned the chaos it must have caused.

First on our many historical sights was the UNESCO World Heritage Citadel. This is roughly squared in shape, each side measuring 2.5 kilometres approx. Most of the population of Hue actually live within these walls. The amount of history here is phenomenal, dating back to 1804 on a sight ...

... 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.

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 ...

... them) But sorry, we are not in the mood for children !! ( never been by the way)
As we already found out that the Cambodian and Vietnamese transportation was pretty well organzied, they came up this time with an even better solution " Nam-Style!" Simpels....the train from Hanoi was stuck on the other side of the bridge as well. Ours here...so they organized 6 buses....took the Hanoi people off and to our train station. We got on the buses and went to their train on the ...

Picked up by our 2 drivers from Hue Riders at 9am to go off exploring. The bikes were really cool & more like Harleys & even had a backrest which I hadn't seen in Vietnam yet. My driver was Quy ( pronounced Kwee) & 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 ...

... especially once you get out of the center and get near the water. I saw a few scenes around dusk in two separate inlets of ocean water that rival any coastal town I‘ve ever been around. The best part of Hoi An was meeting Jonathon there. He woke me up early one morning with a big hug and we went to grab breakfast. We spent a long time catching up on current news and getting our fix of each other.

Let me think, highlights of Hoi An: The first and best is taking the moped ...

... is quite touristy compared to other places we'd been (except Hanoi) and there are taxis/cyclos/motos EVERYWHERE and they don't take no for an answer. You hear "Hello... where you from... where you go... taxi?!" about a gazillion times a day, regardless of your answers! We tried various ways to stop them hassling us from ignoring them to politely saying no (which was the most ineffective!) to using our brolly as a shield (which was the most effective!).

Yes, the ...

... when I give them the thumb's up and "mmmm" sound. They're quite amused.

I'm amused when one asks me what my "hobby" is. I tell him "hula dancing." He stares at me dazed and confused. I try asking him and even his friends if they know about Hawaii, and the dancing, but we're getting no where. I pull out a piece of paper and a pen and scribble a girl dressed in a grass skirt and coconut bra, dancing on an island ...

... to sort the mopeds, and having asked at reception, we were presented with 4 slightly scrappy and grubby yet wonderful mopeds. Sure they had their disadvantages, like a lack of speedometer, lights and in some cases no indication of what gear you were in, but they were ours for the day, and so we loved them. Now we had thought that riding mopeds would be a simple case of this makes it go, this makes it stop, but we were wrong, drastically so. They had gears, they had multiple ...

... a bit bold! It was a good tour though, so he earned his bonus.

We actually wanted to drive me all the way down to Hoi An for a very good price. He (and seemingly every other moto driver in Hue) has a big book of recommendations from people who have made that trip with him before. It does actually sound really good and I would have been tempted but it would take 3 days and again I just don't have the time...