'You want guesthouse?'... 'which country you from?'

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The distance from Hanoi in the north of Vietnam all the way down the coast to the southern city of Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) is around 1760 km's (1093 miles) and is a mammoth journey.

The first leg from Hanoi to Hue was around 14 hours on a sleeper bus. It was to be our first sleeper bus so we were both in a strange way excited !! (odd I know!!) The bus left Hanoi at 6pm and we arrived in Hue just after 7am.

The beds on the bus were quite weird!!! it felt a little strange at first but after an hour we both relaxed and the journey was quite good considering the distance. We had about 3 hours sleep each, the toughest part is keeping your body on the bed around the corners (we were on the top bunks)!!

We arrived in Hue tired and weary and in no mood for the oncoming touts (at 7am.. come on give us a break!!!) 'come stay at my hotel' , 'you want taxi' , 'Which country you from' blah blah blah... Me and Michelle barged our way through shouting back ' no no no... we have booked... tired ... go away!!' and then we were through!!!... only to be faced with a 1 mile walk to the backpacker area (not the best when you are ready to drop!).

We secured a decent place to stay and suddenly felt a brief boost of energy and went about hiring some bicycles for the day.

We didn't do much research on Hue,but after a little flick through the trusty guidebook we headed towards the main attraction 'the Citadel'.

The citadel was constructed in 1802 and was intended to protect the ordinary citizens of Hue, as well as being an imperial city. The enclosed area has a few temples and rather old buildings. We spent a few hours walking around and managed to spot (you can hardly miss them!!) a couple of elephants in the park area.

The only other event in Hue was our rendezvous with the local bobbies!! We were taking a stroll along the river bank watching the sunset thinking 'ah.. a beer right now would be lovely'.... when suddenly a few locals guys called us over to join them for a beer!!!.. naturally we declined until we noticed it was actually four police officers having an evening break!!! We had an excellent 'Huda' beer and got offered another but we made our excuses and left.

The market wasn't up to much, and Michelle was pleased to find a mini supermarket to stock up on a few essential items.

We decided that we had seen everything in Hue, and booked a bus ticket to the highly rated Hoi An for the following day.

(just a quick mention for the Mandarin cafe who were excellent in Hue!! Mr Cu is top draw and gave us a free postcard!!!)

Update you soon!!

Lee and Michelle

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