Hue, Halong Bay & Hanoi

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2nd March

We arrived in Hue after a spectacular drive along the coast. Our guide had pre-arranged a motorbike tour of the city and it's sights so we had a quick check in and we were off, clinging to the backs of little mopeds as they sped off through the traffic.
The tour was a bum numbing, car dodging, mud track driving 4 hours long. To begin with we had lunch at a nunnery, the whole meal was vegetarian and consisted of several foods that we'd never seen and never want to see again, cold squishy things that burst in your mouth and a shit load of cauliflower, not my idea of a good lunch at all, and with Kim heaving for a good half an hour i don't think she liked it either.
We first visited a temple/shrine dedicated to a Vietnamese king of long ago, it was cool to see and to listen how they were treated after death, but this temple was a little bit run down. outside there were life size models of the kings guards and they were tiny!!!
Next stop was at Bunker Hill, a strategic military position during the Vietnam war, but these days it's mainly used for young couples to make out whilst looking at an outstanding view of the perfume river. We interrupted a young couple doing just that, poor lad.
the next few sights were ones i think we could of done without. An old coliseum, which is the only one in SE Asia and used to host tiger and elephant fights for the royal family's amusement. We also stopped on the side of the road to see incense sticks and conical hats being made, sounds a bit sad but the process was interesting enough.
After these few sights we stopped at a temple with a giant turtle in it, made of stone. you rub it's head and wish for something to happen in your life (unfortunately Kim is still here).
To round off the tour we scooted out to a local village, passing through rice fields on our way. The village was really boring, it had nothing to see of interest but an old covered bridge with a mental lady sat inside calling to everyone that passed through it, she was also a bit racist.

With Kim feeling ill all day she had the desire for home comforts, so that night for tea we had cheeseburgers, nothing like home but it made her happy-ish. To round our day off we drank beers and played cards in the hotel. The next day is a big travel day!

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3rd March

After a morning in Hue doing nothing we got on the sleeper train, to our relief it was much better than the dreaded cockroach train! We spent the night sat listening to Paul play his guitar, although he couldn't really decide on what to play, he kept Kim happy when he played the classic, Brown Eyed Girl.
We all went to bed early as the train was due in at 4a.m. Bummer 😞

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4th March

It was awful waking up at 4 a.m. and dragging ourselves off the train and onto a coach for our 5 hour bus journey to Halong Bay. We checked into our hotel, which was full of horrible Chinese people coughing up their guts, and had a nap. Our tour of the bay started at midday and we boarded our junk and sat down for a huge lunch as we travelled out towards the thousands of islands that make up this UNESCO heritage sight, our lunch was made up of calamri, prawns, spring rolls, fried cabbage, chips, rice, elephant ear fish and to finish off, a banana.
Unfortunately the weather was not on our side and the it was overcast making the views not as good as we had hoped. The first stop was at a cave, inside the cave was full of massive stalactites and it had all been lit up with different colours. After we went to a fish farm, the bay that it was in is the same that featured in Top Gears Vietnam special, we got to climb onto the floating farm and watch as they fed cuttlefish.
Dinner that night was awful, Dara took us to the best restaurant in town and it was still shit.

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5th March

After our night at the bay we travelled to Hanoi and after a quick lunch we went to a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show. It was a good laugh, traditional stories performed badly with wooden puppets on a pond. Plus the fact it was in Vietnamese didn't help.
After we sought out Fanny's ice cream parlour, famour for it's all you can eat buffet (we'd missed it by 1 day 😞) The prices were extortionate so we shared a sundae called Cherry Bibi, it consisted of stracciatella, vanilla macademia and chocolate ice cream on top of amaretto flavoured ice and topped with whipped cream. WELL GOOD.
After a quick change we went out to a backpackers bar and enjoyed happy hour and ladies night. 10,000 dong for vodka mixer (30p), the club we went to afterwards was shit so we called it a night.

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6th March

We set out for some food and ended up at the same backpacker bar as the night before. Afterwards Kim purchased postcards and we got a taxi to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and museum, we are absolutely positive that the taxi ripped us off! and when we got there the thing was closed! so we had a loom round the one pillar temple and the surrounding gardens. We bumped into the rest of our tour group and spent the day with them, although we did leave them after deciding that we didn't need to go to the temple of literature.
That night was our farewell/welcome dinner to the people that were leaving/joining us for that leg of the trip. We ate in a little place called cafe 69, our guide had hired a private room at the back of the restaurant for us and it was a cool little place with good food and a good atmosphere to go with it.

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Comments

[Amanda Butler]

lovin it
Hi, loving the blog & photos, hopefully it won't be as long between blogs now our in OZ. oh! and no more spider pics..... YUCK!!!!