May 19th, arrived back in Hanoi about 04.30, so we did a little last minute sight seeing and then went back to Lai's to pack up our stuff. He was a little disappointed to see us go, but for me, it was time to move on. We caught the first of 3 night buses, to Hue, about 500 kms down the coast.
The bus was fine, a lot more comfortable than I had been expecting and I even managed to get some sleep. The fact that it was 1/2 empty might have had something to do with it! We arrived in Hue at around 05.30 and fought our way clear of the taxi/hotel touts and walked to our hotel. Betsy had done us proud, the hotel was clean,the staff friendly and the hotel in a good location. We dumped our stuff and went out. We cycled out to a small village, about 7kms from central Hue to see a Japanese covered bridge. It was well worth it, there were no other tourists, just locals lounging about. So when in Rome, we lounged about on the bridge and enjoyed the view. Unfortunately the sun was a lot stronger than I had expected and I got sunburn on my arms. Not an attractive look!
In the afternoon we went back to town and walked around the citadel, with it's famous flagpole!
We also had to sit out a rain storm, but it stayed warm, so no problem. Then it was to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner, the food and service were really good.
May 21st, we took a boat tour to see some local famous temples, but they were not as impressive as I had hoped and are only a couple of hundred years old. It is not fair to compare them to the Angkor Wat temples that were in our future, but that was what I was doing. We followed the tour with drinks with a couple of girls we had met on the tour and then some pc time at our hotel. I was trying to get up to date with my photos. This was something that had been hanging over me since I had left Shikoku.
The next morning we caught the 8am bus to Hoi An, passing through Da Nang on our way. Da Nang was where US troops first landed in Vietnam. In Hoi An, we found our hostel and went to a tailors shop to get some clothes made. For me this was becoming urgent, my trousers were beginning to wear through and it can be a little difficult to buy clothes in S.E.Asia for me! After all this stress we rented bicycles and spent the whole of the next day at the beach. It was lovely except for constantly being pestered to buy something. Betsy bought some necklaces, but I only bought beer!!