Darren and i take the bus to Hue, it's very unusual as it's a big bus with no more than a dozen people on it and no chickens...very strange. it stops at marble mountains just outside of Hoi An, I'm glad we didn't visit them. 100's of hawkers really pushing the Chinese marble goods - some are full size carvings of lions -Who buys these things!...madness
Hue doesn't impress me after the delight of Hoi An, and yet it's got some really nice sights. We take cyclos around the old town and the citadel - feeling very much like tourists as we are sat side by side with cameras in hand. Cyclos are weird bike contraptions that you sit the front of while the driver towers above and behind you - see the picture. Our drivers regularly have to get out to push us up hills and one like a horse sheds a shoe, well a flip flop. We really are just goods. Later we 'tour' the top hotels looking for happy hour and breezy verandas; you can tell what sort of mood we are in. The next day we hire bicycles and go around looking at dead things mainly...tombs and pagodas, and they are really interesting. This time we feel a bit gay on our two ladies bikes complete with baskets, riding next to each other and chatting. It doesn't help that Darren is a male nurse, so gay jokes accupy a lot of our chatting. Imagine being on the main road in a city, 1000's of scooters are whizzing past and you are just ambling along side-by-side, the freedom here is great, dangerous but great.
We get a little bit lost and a 'nice' lady stops, gives us directions and invites us for tea and pineapple...can you see it coming? We are not surprised when she basically demands money later for her children's education. I'm not annoyed that we went for tea, just that i then gave her money for the tea and pineapple...grrr. She will just do it again now. That situation has been our interaction with the locals of late, we are in a tourist place and we are treated like fresh meat ready to rip off - it's very tiring, and is tainting my view of this country. Directions are generally a nightmare. I swear we pronounce the places perfect, but we just get confused blank looks, like we are aliens and it's someone across the road who ends up answering. I even get one set of directions that would have put me 32km in the the wrong direction! - i was 300m from where i wanted to be. Our best directions came from a 3 year old by the side of the road. Why Darren was asking a 3 year old i don't know:
"which way to Tu Duc" shouts Darren
"that way to Tu Duc" squeaks the little girl, pointing with her arm. So cute.
Even riding along we get a woman who runs out straight in front of us to get us to buy her stuff. No brakes shouts Darren, there's a moments pause, then realisation, then a run for cover, then an eruption of laughter from all her friends...great stuff, deserved as well (am i being mean?)
I meet Mark in Hue, a guy we previously met in Dalat and Darren met in Hoi An. He has an interesting story to tell that we keep getting the latest installment of. He hired an 'Easy Rider' in Dalat. A guy with a motorbike who will take you around the highlands - great name (snigger). He came upon a road construction crew who with their metal detectors had found a dog tag. He bought the dog tag for less than a dollar (I know what you are thinking), and using the Internet traced the name to a Vietnam Vet who's the head of a veterans association back in the U.S. He's pretty sure there genuine and that he's got the right guy. He's emailed the guy and is awaiting a response...we just need to meet Mark one more time...frustrating not to have the end of the story eh. can you imagine how this guy must feel to get them back?
