Ha Noi - Hue - Hoi An

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There is a night market in the streets of the old quarter, but not really anything that’s worth buying!!! The only thing that Leah and I found to be any good was a wolly hat each – as its getting cold – and a stall that sells foooood!!!!! And its cheap as well which is always a good thing!!!!

We made a day trip to theMuseumofEthnologyand got our first local bus there! Number 14 from the lake takes you almost there but we told the bus driver where we wanted to go and he just shouts at you when you are almost there! The bus back is from the other side of the road and its only 3000 Dong each so cheap enough!

This museum is actually better than we first thought and acually takes a few hrs to look round it! Its all about the local people and how they make everything – survive and live in the small villages! There are little almost documentry type tv’s playing all over the place which actually give you more information than the signs. There is also a whole out door bit which you can walk round and see the different types of houses and how they would have lived. There is a café on site that is run by local college kids that are in training but they do a good coffee and cake, and some peoples meals looked great as well!



We are actually getting a little tired of it here now as the people are not that friendly and the hustle and bustle of the city is getting to us so we have decided to move on to Hue. This is an over night bus down the country and hope it’s a little better weather there as well. Now we have a few options available here! There is an open bus ticket that stops and 5 strategic places in the countys and ends up inSaigonor we can just buy each trip seperatly which will be a little more but give us the flexibility to get a train or add more places to our journey down! We actually decided to just book the single trips down as reading reviews on some companies – Camel and TM brothers are rubbish and the drivers all sound horrible! We have actually seen some of these busses and they do look very old and some have been had windows covered with cardbord which cant be very good if you are trying to sleep on these! I cant remember the company we went with but its not Sing Café – but this journey turned out to be a nightmare. The bus was actually alright and we had good sleepers if not once again a little small for a normal 6 foot westerner!

The problems started when we were pulled over by the police at 7am and re directed to the police station where some suspect packages were taken off and examined. This took a further 3 hrs of sitting in the police station compound with no one telling us what was happening and even getting annoyed when we tried to get off the bus! Which we all did and went to get some food. The 12hr journey taking nearly 20hr and to top it off one of the guys got their ipod stolen by the girl in front of him – all the locals knew that she had taken it but no one would hilp this guy out and all she kept doing was smiling at him! Not a good country I have to tell you! Its one rule for the locals and everyone else is the enermy. I have never felt like this in any other place I have travelled but its just mad here!



SoHue– There is really noting to see here and with the weather still being annoying – slightly rainy but not as cold asHanoi– we hit a bar and had a beer and a burger to make us feel a little better! We found some nice pleaces to eat here and there was even a mad fruit market the other side of the river which was quite cool to visit. We didn’t actually do much here and so we decided to go down to Hoi An and see what that’s got to offer. We booked a bus with Singh café and this turned out to be over 2 hrs late leaving – no idea why but then we are inVietnam! The sun actually came out and stayed out as we arrived. There are much less traffic here in Hoi An and already I can feel the warmth making me feel better! Lets just hope that theVietnamexperience is only going to be getting better.

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