Abalone Resort Hue

D Day +29 +30 +31
Hue Backpacker...........Wow.
This place cost 100,000 Dong per night. Beer cost 20,000 Dong and it's Free beer 5-6. Drink 5 beers and you stay for free. Had a really good group of people staying and actually remember some names. Really loving Vietnam now after a sticky start.

unser erster Stop Richtung Sueden ist Hue fuer eine Nacht um die Busfahrt etwas aufzuteilen. 12 std. waren es dieses Mal.

Hatten dieses Mal aber zum Glueck einen etwas komfortableren Schlaf-Bus. Jeder hatte seine eigene Liege. Die war zwar nicht wirklich ausreichend aber besser als sitzen war es auf alle ...

... continues to abound.

Why is there a picture of the doggie in this blog entry? Because we miss her an awful lot and she just got groomed, isn't she simply adorable? Knowing my ungrateful babygirl, she is in full cahoots with Grandma and Ong Piu and has completely forgotten who Mom and Dad are.

We said goodbye to our gracious hosts at the Hanoi Phoenix Hotel and leave behind fond memories of kind people with the continual desire to help and assist ...

... The roads are really fun you see all kinds of things. Hopefully I'll provide you with some fun photos in the coming weeks! But for now just a few of the first day!!

Tomorrow is our first big day 80 K and we get to a seaside town. We start at 7.00 am cycling...but hopefully can spend the afternoon on the beach!! Let's see.....

... as his female
assistant handed us our banh chung (sticky rice and pork wrapped in a
banana leaf). No table, napkin, silverware, or beverage just the
banh chung – and that's all that was needed. It was delicious! As
we ate our first round we noticed grandpa in the window staring and
smiling at us. After we devoured our first we ordered seconds – as
the owner, assistant, and ...

DAY NINE
After a 12 hour sleeper train from Hanoi to Hue - we arrived first thing in a morning feeling more than a little jaded!
Each train cabin had 6 beds and it felt like sleeping on a wooden door - so its fair to say they were not comfortable!
At one stage we were playing cards and drinking beers when some Vietnamese guy came and stood outside our cabin door staring at us ... he stayed for about 5 mins and then started singing! We were just ...

... you develop a façade of tough independency, because dependency and need is a weakness often exploited here, financially more than anything else.

Once down, we got our main packs back and got the hell out of there. We caught a bus full of people. A bicycle crowded the aisle and bags of rice took up seats. It was hardly an hour before we were in Hue. We bargained with the guy at Lenh’s hotel for a bit and finally got a decent room for $4 each. I was feeling decent and the ...

... to the Perfume River, crossing a huge bridge at one point, before ducking into a mall/grocery store to see if we could pick up some snacks. Had to dodge an enormous rat while crossing the parking lot. We then continued our sojourn, hoping to stumble on something historic or noteworthy. It didn't take long as we soon saw the ramparts of the Citadel in the distance. The Citadel is actually a 22 km square wall. Most of the original temple structures inside are ...

... lunch on the boat was intentionally very meager - they also offered additional dishes for an extra charge. I sucked it up and ate the free meal. Luckily my new Chinese friends bought a variety of snacks from vendors near the pagodas in anticipation of the lack of food on the boat. I tried a delicious peanut candy snack as well as a baked yam (fairly flavorless but interesting that they sold them on the side of the road). After lunch we headed to three tombs, all of which had an additional ...

... today was a knockout, blue skies, green islands, white sandy beaches, that's more like it! ;)



We had a pretty rough breakfast of what tasted like McEggs served with very processed white bread, with the usual VERY sweet Vietnamese coffee which felt like your teeth were rotting as you drank it!



Our captain then upped anchor and went off to ...