We both couldn't fit onto the mans motorbike, especially with our packs, even if you can fit a whole asian family on! We followed on foot whilst he pushed his bike along, going from hotel to hotel collecting other backpackers as we went, eventually being dropped at the bus collection point. We left Hanoi feeling slightly better about the place then we did on our first visit.
As we had spent so much time in Halong Bay we did not leave ourselves long to see the rest of Vietnam.
Hue (pronounced Hu-ay) was our first stop on our open bus ticket. Hue is a nice place with a quite a history. It was the historic capital aswell as being the city nearest the north/south divide. We spent our time on tours trying to see as much as possible in as little time as possible.
For our first trip we had a guide called Loc. As soon as we met him we realised he was Ryan's uncle Allys long lost Vietnamese brother. We couldn't belive the similarities, he even laughed the same as Ally.
The tour itself was great, sorry parents, it was a motorbike tour, well scooter tour. Loc lead the way, first helping us fill up with petrol, then off to tour the city. Our first stop a really old bridge, hundreds of years old. It was amazing, especially as it was made from wood, had not had any restorations done and was still standing even after the war and the heavy bombing in the area. We then zoomed off to a nearby hill that had amazing views and was also home to some U.S bunkers, yet more remnants from the war.
We then wizzed off to Emporer Tu Duc tomb complex. This took 11 years to build and he used it as a relaxing retreat, with a theatre and a peaceful lake where he used to write poetry. He was buried here after his death along with his wives and concubines.
We also stopped at an old arena that was used for fighting Elephants against Tigers, a fight to the death. This was only for the Emporer and his family to enjoy and apparantly the Elephants always won as the Emporer prefered them and the tiger could be used for herbal medicines.
We then visited a Pagoda, a tower made from 7 levels with top layer dedicated to Buddha. This Pagoda is still tended to by Monks and regularly worshiped at by the locals.
Our last destnation was the Citadel in the centre of Hue. We first circled the Citadel and stopped at a small military museum. We had great fun climbing all over the tanks and machine guns, although we did burn our bums posing for photos, it can't have been nice actually sitting inside them during the war.
The Citadel itself had been mostly destroyed during the war and is in the process of being restored, but is still home to some impressive architecture. With in the Citadel is another Citadel that was used by the Emporer and his family as well as the forbided Purple Palace. This palace was for the use of the Emporer and his concubines only, the only other people allowed to enter were unich servants, as they would pose no threat to the concubines.
Our second tour was to visit the DMZ, demilitarised zone. The first stop was to a visit to the Vinh Loc tunels, made by the VietCong to hid from the Americans and transport/store weaponary. We were supprised at the size of the tunnels, we were expecting to be crawling through, instead we were nearly able to stand up. We went underground 5, 10 and 20 ft. The surrounding area was littered with bomb craters so it is amazing that the tunnels survived. We also visited a Viet Cong graveyard, only 10% of the tombs are named, a destroyed tank and the old border crossing. Our guide for this trip was a war vet, however he was fighting with the Americans so his life has not been good since the war ended, even now he is checked up on to make sure he is not saying the wrong things.
Our next bus stop was Hoi An, famous for its tailors. We were suprised to find that many did not design their own clothes but copied them from the Next catalogue. After browsing the spring/summer catalogues we picked a few bits to be made to measure for still half the price they would be in UK. The clothes were made amazingly quickly, we were called for a fitting the next day and the alterations were made in just a few hours.
Near Hoi An are the My Son (pronounced Mee Son) temples. A collection of temples that hasd been hidden in the jungle for years.
One of the temple complexes was dedicated to both the Male and Female Gods. Whilst the image the female was fairly boring the Male Image was very clear. Basically a giant penis. Apparantly if a man wants to be *uhum* bigger and stronger he should put "it" in the hole at the front and miracles would happen over night! We never knew historic temples could be so pornographic.
We departed Hoi An on another 12 hour sleeper bus, arriving at Nha Trang at 4am. Although it was nice to arrive somewhere early it was a bit tricky to find out where you were when everything was still closed. We knew that we wanted to stay at a hotel near the beach so we decided to follow the crowds of locals, hoping that they would be heading to open their businesses on the sea front. Thankfully we were right and not that far away. We even found a nice hotel that had someone awake enough to show us a room.
We have now been here for 6 days, not sure where all the time has gone, it has been so nice to chill out and be away from the crazyness of the cities. It hasn't just been beach, we have managed to get a little bit of sight seeing done too.
One day we hired a bicycle to have a look around the town and get to a few sights. It was lovely cycling aroung until we suddenly got caught in the middle of town traffic. The scooters seemed to come from no-where. One junction we had to cross was particularily terrifying. It was a giant roundabout, which would nornally be ok but the Vietnamese don't seem to understand how to use roundabouts, there is no right of way it is basically a case of just go and don't stop or look to your side. The only way for us to cross was to do the same, so we stuck together and went for it, not looking to our right out of fear, and keeping a fast but consistant speed inthe hope that he scooters will just go round us. It worked, although our nerves were slightly the worse for wares. On our ride we visited a temple with that had a giant seated Buddha above it over looking the town. Also the oceanographic museam, a weird mix between aquarium and museum. After walking round the live fish we then got to explore rooms filled with pickled specimin.
We also decided that just lying on the beach wasn't enough relaxation so we also visited a Spa, more specifically a mud spa. This was great fun. We paid a tiny bit extra to have a private mud bath, basically a big wooden bath tub. We climbed in and were very giggly, probably ruining the relaxing mood for our fellow mud wallowers, slipping around and especially when it came to dunking in our heads.