The rest of Vietnam.

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We have now worked our way down the Vietnam coastline and have enjoyed every moment.
Hue was our first stop and our first experience of the sleeper bus. A slightly bizarre set up with appearing to be a double decker bus from the outside but in reality is three columns of bunk beds. The beds are narrow and short which was not such a problem for the Vietnamese who are all mini! The driver is not very considerate, beeping his horn all through the night so I wouldn't say we arrived in Hue totally refreshed.
The town itself is small with a real backpackers hub which made it easy to meet people and a lot of fun. During the few days we spent here we did a boat trip along the Perfume River which was ok but nothing too exciting as we have seen a lot of pagodas now. Then we spent one day on a tour of the De-Militarised Zone, this took us around the different zones of the Vietnam war and our tour guide, a war veteran, pointed out where some of the key events occurred and some personal stories surrounding them. The tour finished with am excursion into one of the Vietnamese tunnel systems that civilians hid/lived in through the war period. It was alarming to see the sizes of the rooms and passages people were living in and difficult to imagine the number of people that were there. Our last morning in Hue was spent at the Citadel, though to be honest we were so hot! the majority of the morning was actually spent in a cafe trying to cool down.
Hoi An was our next stop on the Open Bus ticket but was a bus during the day, though still a sleeper bus. I think travelling at night is less frightening as you can only wonder about how wreckless the driving is whereas in the day you can clearly see it! At one point we stopped to change about three of the buses tyres?? We didn't receive any notice, I don't think they care too much about delays. There is not too much to say regarding Hoi An, except for that it is a beautiful town with tailors in abundance! Far too much money was expended so that we blew right past the three day budget, however, we have now each got lots of nice clothes so we aren't suffering too badly. In contrast, Abbie did suffer rather badly after an incident on our bikes on the way to the beach. Swerving to avoid a man with a hose, Abbie collided into the back of my bike and fell directly into a huge, gravelly, muddy puddle. Luckily she had chosen to do this right outside a hairdressers where some very kind Vietnamese people came to her rescue. They literally hosed her down as blood was poring from elbows, hands, shins, knees and feet. Then they brought out this amazing antiseptic lotion which bubbled over the wounds. One man emptied the contents of his cigarette over her hand, slightly strange, but we googled it later and it turns out tobacco is a natural antiseptic. Abbie had appeared fine under the circumstances but as they tried to move her inside she complained 'my eyes are going funny, my head feels weird'. The next moment she had fainted straight onto the floor! Only out for a few seconds we quickly got her on a chair where she received a head massage with tiger balm, amazing apparently, and they proceeded to dress her remaining wounds. The rest of that afternoon was spent watching the Royal Wedding on a french channel before we headed out for more dress fittings. No night life in Hoi An particularly but Star Movies on our tv filled the void.
The next sleeper bus, 14 hours in total was an almost sleepless night for me. My first attempt to sleep was disturbed by an extremely unwelcome guest. A cockroach decided to invade my personal space so I rapidly jumped the gap over on to Abbie's bed where she was a little surprised to find me. Deciding that my bed was no longer only my residence I moved but this placed me right by the driver and his bloody horn!!! Arriving in Nha Trang at 6am our disorganised method of travelling backfired on us for the first time as we struggled to find accommodation. Eventually we settled for an expensive room for us at $15/night in an extremely smelly hotel. The plan had been to stay only two nights here leaving for Saigon on our third day but unfortunately the bus was full so we had to stay an extra night. This turned out to be the best as I developed a stomach bug on our first evening which pretty much knocked me out for two days. We did enjoy two days on the beach and didn't miss out on anything major as Nha Trang is primarily a beach resort.
Another full day on the bus brought us to Saigon, an extremely vibrant and atmospheric city. Here we didn't have to organise anything as Jo Reed met up with us and showed us where to stay and then took us to the main sites the following day; it was very nice not having to think for a while. We visited the Notre Dame Cathedral (not quite as impressive as the real thing, particularly as they have surrounded a statue of the Virgin Mary with a neon blue lit frame). Next was the post office, for the architecture, and then the War Remnants Museum. The museum was particularly moving with many photos and storied of past and present victims of agent orange, some disfigurements I couldn't have imagined possible. It was also clearly condemning of the Americans, understandably, with quotes from the US Declaration of Independence talking about humanity and the fair treatment of all human beings. There was also a 'copy' of a letter written to Obama by a child who suffers from the effects of agent orange asking Obama for some level of support shown to the American war veterans, supposedly he received no response. In the evening we waved Joseph off on his first sleeper bus, not something we envied him, and booked transportation to Cambodia for the following day.
We decided to get a boat along the Mekong Delta to take us across the Cambodian border as it had been recommended to us. There were some stops along the way where we watched the local people making coconut candy and peanut candy, then we got conned in to buying far too much of the stuff, we now have stacks of it! In the afternoon we went to a crocodile farm which was good, and then continued the journey on land to our floating hotel where we stayed that night. Dinner was on another boat which went dead slow! but was rather enjoyable. The next morning we went to a local village before boarding the fast boat to take us to the border.
We have spent two and a half weeks in Vietnam and have thoroughly enjoyed it, however, we are definitely ready to move on and begin discovering a new country which will start with the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.

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