Next morning after breakfast and filling up with fuel we met up with Gary and Vicki, and have a big drink break at the local café. I can not believe how much fluid you can drink in this country and still be thirsty. Stock up for more water for the next 70kms to Hue. We are on Highway 1 and the traffic is noisy, dirty and very dangerous. The rules just don't seem to apply. We arrive in Hue and head to The Jade Hotel which is Vicky and Gary’s favourite hotel. There are cuddles with the staff, sit down to the cold wet face washer refresher. Can there be anything better? I think not. Juice, fruit and rooms. On no…. we are on the fourth floor and no elevators! There is going to be economic trips up and down to the room for the next few hours. Energy is a short price commodity at the moment for all of us.
Refreshed and out the door to have lunch at the deaf and mute café and then to find the Elephant and Tiger Fighting arena, and more importantly the place where they looked after the favoured elephants. This was a one horse race, the elephants represented royalty, so therefore would always win. The way this was achieved was to take out the claws and teeth of the tigers. Wouldn’t you just love to go to work the day you had to de claw and teeth the tigers? OHS, life insurance, ZIP. Just around the corner was the place the elephants lived and then buried when it was time to die. This was a beautiful place, facing a large water lilly pond. Feng Shui … tick.
Gary found he had another flat tyre, and this time they find the culprit, a large cut in the tyre. I took Vicky back with me while Gary gets the tyre fixed. Bush mechanic guru cuts up an old plastic oil bottle glues it to a piece of old inner tube then glues on the inside of the tyre. Once pumped up the split opens up, no problems fill the gap with layers of super glue and sand then shapes it to the tread pattern. And it worked.
Massive shout out to Barney (Hoi An Food Safari) for telling us all about Nina’s café. Yum, Yum, Yum… I mean Ngon, Ngon, Ngon. It was a case of eat and vacate the table because of the big line up outside waiting for a seat. Tummies full we head off to the DMZ bar for a flaming B52. Kahlua, Sambucca, Vodka and ???, One of these drinks is set alight and poured into the glass while you guzzle. Delicious but it was also hard to drink because it honestly feels like you are drinking flames. It was only after you finish that you can taste what you have drunk. By now, the day is done, we are stuffed, literally and figuratively. Arrange to meet for breakfast at 8(ish) to discuss riding home.
