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Had a brilliant day today taking a long motorbike tour (each of us on the backof a local driver's bike) through the town and surrounding countryside.We saw so much it is hard to describe it all, but we stopped off at pagodas, abandoned artillery guns from the war, a coliseum formerly used for elephant and tiger fighting, drove through a 2km long graveyard and were treated to a scrumptious (and huge) vegetarian buffet lunch at an orphanage just outside of Hue, cooked by the nuns who look after the children.The orphanage was really sad to see, and we were told that there are many orphans in Vietnam, but the children were so well looked after and it was good to know that our visit for lunch was helping to fund the nuns' work. Probably the best thing about the tour was simply the fun of being driven around on the bikes, watching the great scenery fly past as the drivers carved through the crazy Vietnamese traffic. However , we ran into a spot of bother towards the end of the day…driving down a narrow, muddy alley we met a big van going round the corner far too fast, unfortunately, Bex's driver skidded the bike in the mud after dodging the van!!The poor driver ended up under his bike, whilst Bex skillfully avoided major damage by jumping off the back at the last moment, apart from taking a nasty exhaust burn to the leg. But we didn't let it didn't spoil a great day!

Our evening meal was also a treat today as several of us ate at Lac Thien, a Vietnamese restaurant run by a deaf-mute family.The food was superb and the host really friendly, bottles of beer arrive with a fanfare as the owner uses homemade bottle openers (basically a wooden plank with a screw and bolt in) to open six bottles with a single karate chop!!