Nirvana Spa & Resort Hue

sorry this has taken us so long kinda been relaxing for a while and internet has been rubbish, anyway...

arrived in hue early morning from a sleeping bus went for a kip as sleeping bus does not suggest you get much sleep. walked around the citadel in the afternoon in kind of disrepair from bombing which is a shame as it was quite impressive. found the cafe on thu ...

... Back at the hotel we quizzed the receptionist about the safety of getting motorbikes to Hoi an. She pulled a face and said 'not very' as the typoon was due to arrive tomorrow in Hue! If the weather was ok it would be safe. She said she would make a wish for us.. and it must have worked, the weather the next day was good and the typoon had moved up to Halong Bay - phew! getting good at narrowly missing these typoons!

... an inordinate amount of tombs and cemeteries. The rural people here have one strange tradition: the children are responsible to build the tombs for their parents before their parents die, and the parents also want to see their own coffins before they kick the bucket ("Son, i want the latest model of coffin with the chrome mouldings and fuzzy dice"). How morbid is that?!

Other than knowing that shrimps taste scrumptuous, especially the crispy ...

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We booked in for the night - very basic but $10 & has WIFI. Unbelievably hot again & we had sweat poring off us ( again!!). I had walked up to the rooftop & seen a coffee shop a block away & Nathan needed reviving in the heat so headed there for him to have a latte & be revived in the aircon. That done we started walking to the Sinh Cafe to ...

... my shorts and held them in fronts of myself as I gave him a sheepish smile with hopes that he understood. I think he did seeing as how he turned away and went back to wherever he came from. I got the goggles and ran to my destiny. Once in, I had the time of my life. Swimming backwards, kicking my legs, watching the neon green lights flutter and disappear as I swam along. It was one of the most relaxing times of my life. Times like these are the reason why I travel. Moments that ...

... one of the biggest cities in Vietnam and is famous for its recent war time past being nearby the DMZ (demilitarised zone). However of more interest to us was the fact it was also home to Nguyen Dynasty of emperors and home to a citadel not dissimilar to the Forbidden City in Beijing, as well as many ornate and beautiful tombs. As we were a little tired after our overnight bus journey we decided to just visit the Citadel on the first day. We picked a great ...

... since people paying a range of prices for the tickets were all lumped together on our bus. I was hoping the cheap ticket price would explain the ridiculous tour we received but that doesn't seem to be the case.

You can't come to Viet Nam without taking the DMZ tour since it takes you to several historical sites from the war and despite the name demilitarized zone (DMZ) was quite heavily militarized in the end.

Basically we sat in a ...

... mine off for me. I felt like a fool, but I'm pretty sure the moped was evil and thus it was not all my fault (yeah right!) We got a bit dressed up to celebrate our continued life after mopeding and caught a sort of rickshaw to what we thought was the citadel. These types had essentially a big chair with a guy riding a bike behind it to push it along, and could fit two people if one was content to sit between the others knees on the edge of the seat...mmm comfy. Translation ...

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y luego a la Tumba de Tu Duc














y a la Tumba de Khai Dinh.






Después de un día duro, un bocata en la piscina y masajitos en el hotel. Esta vez no fue tan bien como en Hoi An. Aparte de que el sitio parecía un prost ...

... our mini-bus home to arrive to take us back to Hanoi. Why couldn't we have just had more time on the boat?

When the mini van finally arrived we jumped in and went literally 5 mins up the road for some lunch, which was absolutely identical to the other 3 meals we'd had on the ship!

This lunch did enable us to get to know the Aussie couple, Peter & Di, who ...