well, where to start...!
We arrived in Hanoi on Tuesday and it has to be the most crazy place we have been so far..! The Vietnamese all seem to drive mopeds, by that we mean the elderly, whole families, businesses, they all use mopeds to get around the city.. It's a pretty frantic but happy place and we had a wander around down to Hoan Kiem lake where we grabbed some food for dinner and a few Beer Hoi... Not bad but not as good as Beer Lao so far!!
Weds we decided to spend the day sightseeing so we visited the Temple of Literature and the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex... Uncle Ho's body is having its yearly embalming session so we didn't get to seem him but saw his final resting place...
Thursday we decided to get out of Hanoi for a couple of days and arranged to go on a two day Halong Bay tour, staying on a Junk overnight in the bay.. Well it was the best $60USD we have spent so far... We got transportation, all food and 1 night on the most beautiful boat (junk) plus the scenery is out of this world.... A great and relaxing time was had. The food was fresh seafood caught that day and delivered to our boat by a small vietnamese fishing boat just before tea...! Perfect.
We arrived back in Hanoi briefly on Friday pm in time to catch our night bus from there to Hue in the Central Area of Vietnam. The bus took 14 hours... Nuff said.
On arrival in Hue yesterday morning we checked in to a nice hotel and set about sightseeing... At this point we'd been awake 24 hours with no sleep... Within Hue there is a Citadel with some pretty old buildings from 1804... Nice but not a patch on some of the other sights we have seen. We then met up with some people from the Halong Bay boat trip and arranged to see them for dinner. One of them had read about a restaurant run by a deaf and mute family. It is one of the best (and cheapest) meals we've had so far and a definite highlight of Vietnam.
Today (Sunday) we decided to leave Hue and head for Hoi An. We bought tickets yesterday for the Vietnam Reunification Express train which runs the length of the country.. Our trip took us from Hue to Danang along one of the most scenic sections of the train line. It was incredible. The train runs parallel to the sea for most of the journey and we have never seen such beautiful, deserted beaches. Let's hope they stay that way for a long time. Nice to see no developers there.. yet...
On arrival in Danang we had planned to catch a minibus to Hoi An but were stopped by a motorcycle rider and decided, why not! It is our ONE YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY after all!! So we had the most fantastic, exhilarating ride all the way along the coast into Hoi An where we are now... Off out tonight for a special meal and more than a few glasses of wine/beer.
Love to you all. Mr and Mrs Haines xxx
