Having been a little neglectful with keeping up to date with the blog I will now attempt to sum up the two journeys and 3 cities since I last wrote.
The first city Hoi An was beautiful, exactly how I pictured 1800s Oriental cities courtesy of the King and I. There were lots of old wooden buildings and warehouses, the streets were unmade up tracks and there were chinese lanterns everywhere all centered around the river and little bridges. There were less mopeds and more bicycles so at last we felt safe to do one of our vietnamese goals and rent bikes - heading via bridges and rice fields to the beach. This was also the place of some of my best vietnamese food experiences so far - mushroom stuffed with fish, and local delicacies of shrimp wanton, noodle soup and white roses - shrimp dumplings.
From here we opted out of the comfort zone option of our usual tourist bus and took the train. This turned out to be well worth the effort as for once we were the only tourists in our carriage and the scenery going along the coast and past jungles and mountains was amazing.
After a few delays we arrived in Hue and here was a lesson in not just going by your first impressions - this was of a very busy city, with unfriendly people (going for dinner at the Lonely Planet recommended restaurant called 'Friendly' we had the most hostile and rude service we have had here), and not much character. But Jess talked me out of my first instinct to leave the next day and we took the time to explore it, found some really nice restaurants and visited the ancient citadel which was amazing. It was not actually that ancient built in the 1800's by the emperor but very grand and because it had been so badly bombed in the Vietnamese war a lot of it was in ruins and had a just discovered feel to it. Anywhere that has a place called the 'Forbidden Purple Temple' which is hidden in a secret garden is good enough for me.
After a couple of days here we headed off on a night bus chosing the evening before the biggest Vietnamese celebration of the year to travel on. This meant a 16 hour journey with Vietnamese love songs blaring out on loop all night untill the actually civilized hour of 9 in the morning which was at the start so crowded there were people in the aisles on garden stools and in hammocks.
But at last we arrived in City number 3 and the capital of Vietnam - Ha Noi. Really like it here, thanks to the French colonial period it's like an asian version of paris, so there are tree lined avenues, little squares and cafes everywhere, it's just that the trees have vines trailing down, the buildings around the squares are more ramshackle and the cafes are serving noodles (although we've tracked down some very good baguettes here).
We've spent a couple of nights here, seen the fireworks and general 30th April celebrations and apparently sampled the worlds cheapest bear (about 20p for a glass). Now my trekking boots are on and we're getting ready for the night train to Sapa - a mountain town and place of 'moderate trekking' . . .
