Team America, chicken chaser and the Manc lad - Hue, Hoi'an & Nha Trang

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South on the Reunification Express to Hue. We spend a day cruising to the old Royal Tombs that are dotted alongside the Perfume River. The tombs are magnificent but with no restoration whatsoever. Nice to see a contrast to restored historical sights throughout China, but saddening to see the state of disrepair that they are in.

Only a short stay and then off to Hoi'an - we are seeking the beach and in Hoi'an we find it.

Hoi'an is a beautiful port town with China Beach only a 10 minute moped ride away. The town survived bombing during the war and the narrow streets of French architecture are all intact. Unfortunately the centuries old Cham Towers nearby - temples for the Cham's who ruled part of Vietnam in the 12th century - didn't escape the American bombs. The ruins are impressive enough but what they looked like before the bombs arrived must have been awe inspiring (the VC used them as a base and the American's didn't give it a second thought before blitzing the place - Think Team America - Fuck Yeah!)

After Paul having an interesting lesson on moped riding - "1,2,3,4 Go!" - we spend an afternoon cruising around China Beach. We reached some remote fishing villages further up the beach trying to avoid the many hawkers which were driving us nuts. Our hopes for some isolated beach time were cut short by crowds of local children running onto the beach to come greet the 'white' folks. Much smiling and waving!

Hoi'an's claim to fame other than the beaches are their tailors. Street upon street of tailors running up suits in 12 hours for $40. We obviously "need" a couple of suits...plus some coats...and ties and add a nice 8 kilos to our backpacks with our "essential shopping".

Watched the England v Equador game on a projector screen sat outside a bar. I fell asleep during the first half and I'm not blaming it all on my tiredness either. 90 minutes of Paul ranting about how dismal we are and why is Beckham even playing - who then naturally scores. Through to the quarter's without playing well or having a tough game!

Next stop Nha Trang. It's another beach town. Very touristy and very easy. Paul is finally doing his Openwater - hurrah! So we're staying here for 6 days while he does his dives and his homework.

Nha Trang has a lively atmosphere, excellent seafood restaurants (esp. Le Can and it's table top BBQ's) and decent bars (at one local we are greeted with 'alright kid' & 'sorted', when Paul quizzed which part of Manchester he was from the response was 'Southampton'. Bloody Oasis wannabee's), but still retains a relaxed not 'Club Med' atmosphere. The only drawback was that out of 6 days here we saw no blue skies!

Paul passed his Openwater and got a couple of sea dives in. It's now time to move head back inland, to Saigon...

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Comments

[Fraser]

It's a tough life......
but someone has to do it! Fab pics - keep 'em coming. xx