Central Vietnam...Eventually

Firstly a long overdue Happy New Year to everyone!

Leanne had some spare time one day

It has been a while since our last post but it has been difficult to find a decent computer to do it on. For some reason in some areas of Vietnam Facebook, Hotmail, and other social media sites like the blog are restricted. Now we are in Laos we can finally update you all with the last few weeks!

Picking up from the last blog we visited the sand dunes on our second day in Mui Ne. This was both beautiful and infuriating: the beautiful part was the sand dunes. They were very picturesque and a refreshing change of scenery. However we (mainly me, rob) decided it would be fun to rent a quad bike to ride on them. We had 20 minutes to play about on it the first 5 were fun but then it stopped and wouldn't start again, after 5 minutes someone finally came and fixed it only for it to break down again. When another person eventually came to fix it he couldn't and told me my time was up and to go back on his. I wasn't happy! I drove back, feeling cheated and asked for either half the money back or another 10 minutes which we had paid for. He was not very cooperative to say the least and after spending a good 10 minutes arguing with him in English he decided that he could no longer speak or understand English.
Leanne: I didn't want to get a quad in the first place and spent the time that it worked holding on for dear life on a seat that was designed for one person. Then when Rob got in a strop I left him to squabble with the man whilst I got a slide and slid down the dunes and took some nice shots. Enjoy:

Can you spot the 'moon' behind us??

From Mui Ne we got the bus to Nha Trang and then got a sleeper train to Danang and then finally another bus to Hoi An. We left Mui Ne at 1pm on one day and arrived in Hoi An around noon the next. It was a long journey but an enjoyable one. I really liked getting the sleeper train. Each cabin had 4 bunks, 2 bottom and and 2 top. Me and Leanne had the top two whilst an old Vietnamese couple had the bottom, although we are certain that the woman changed half way during the journey.

We spent 4 nights in Hoi An, it is an old French colonial town on the river. All the buildings in the old quarter were in the same style and colour, a pastel yellow.



Although we can't rotate this is one of Leanne's favourite photos so she wanted to put it on anyway

 It is renowned for its tailoring, in the past in was an important town for the silk trade and it has kept its tailoring traditions. I decided that I would get 2 suits and a shirt made for when I start my job. At $270 it was pretty cheap for 2 quality tailor made suits and a shirt. Over our stay I had 3 fittings and the suits turned out good. On my final fitting the girls working there asked Leanne if she spoke Vietnamese and then when she said no proceeded to talk and giggle amongst themselves, definitely talking about how good I looked!  Lets just hope they get home, it takes 10-12 weeks so we won't find out for a while.

Poser!

We also took a day trip to the My Son ruins. These are the ruins of ancient Cham temples some dating to as far back as the 4th Century. Sadly many of the buildings were destroyed during the heavy bombing by Americans in the Vietnam war. There was still a lot to see and it reminded us of the Angkor temples just on a much smaller scale.

He's no Archie!

The weather in Hoi An was pretty wet and dull we spent most our time wandering in the old town from cafe to restaurant and ate a lot of good food.We tried a few local specialties and a few western comfort meals. Up until now we weren't that impressed with the food in Vietnam but our few days here restored our faith!

We even tried a cooking class here, as good as it sounds eating out every meal we craved a bit of cooking. We were a little disappointed with the course as our instructor was quite controlling and didn't seem to want to let us do it. But with me and Leanne both being stubborn this just had the opposite effect. When mixing the filling for the spring rolls she seemed disgusted that I used my bare hands to mix...obviously she hasn't heard of Jamie Oliver!






My mixing skills!

The finished article - Just after the photo Leanne displayed her eating skills!

On the one sunny day we had there we rented bicycles (again, this is becoming Leanne's favourite past time) and cycled to the beach.
It was a beautiful beach with the waves rolling in all along the coast. It reminded me of one of the beaches from home, although the weather and water were slightly warmer than the North Sea.

From Hoi An we got another train to Huê, this time the journey only took 3 hours and went through some of the best scenery we have experienced so far. Unfortunately it was raining and cloudy so we could not appreciate it fully but it was still beautiful through the rain. The train wound through the green mountains which dropped away to the crashing waves below. When looking out the window it seemed as ìf the train was hanging over the edge.

The best we could do through the dirty window and rain.  Google the Hoi Van Pass to get a better picture

Hue is a former capital of Vietnam and has a huge citadel on the north of the river surrounded by a moat which we spent a day looking around. Inside the citadel there is a smaller complex which was only for the Emperor. Again due to heavy American bombing a lot of this is no longer how it once was but you can still sense how regal it once was.

We try to coordinate our outfits.

Within the main citadel walls it is just people living and working so there is not that much to see. We found this out the hard way after a long day walking!

Along the river in Hue are many Emperors tombs, I think 13 in total. We visited 2 of them which are about 20km outside the city centre. They were very grand and opulent, and given they are quite remote and in the middle of jungle like terrain must have taken a lot of money and effort to build. One of them took 11 years to build and was built during a time of hardship for the people so it múst have been difficult to see all this money and work being put into making such an elaborate place for the Emperor when he died.
The two tombs were vastly diferent. One was more of a Western design and was very small in size, located on the top of a hill.

Outside the Khai Dinh Tomb



Can you spot which one is Rob?



Inside the Khai Dinh Tomb

Another in more traditional style was sprawled over a long stretch of land, and even had dedicated tombs for one of his 103 wives and another for his step child. There was also an artificial lake built to make it a more peaceful place.

In front of the lake at Tu  Doc Tomb

We also took a trip to the DMZ demilitarized zone, which ironically was the place that saw the most fighting in the Vietnam war. It was ok, but given that the places of interest were so far apart we spent most of the day on the bus, stopping for 10-20mins here and there. The best part of the trip was the Vinh Moc tunnels. These consisted of a network of underground tunnels that the Vietnamese used to hide and live in during the US bombings. It was hard to imagine whole communities living under there, at one point of unrelenting bombings, they stayed underground for 11 days straight. 17 babies were born in the tunnels, in the maternity ward that was not bigger than a double bed. Walking through the tunnels was not too bad for me (Leanne) as they were around my height, but Rob had backache after our 25minute trip.

This isn't rob lying down just a photo we still can't rotate.

This takes us up to Hanoi where we visited Halong Bay. This deserves a blog on it own and this blog is already so long, hopefully it doesn't take us another 2 weeks to update.

We hope everyone at home is good and hasn't forgotten about us despite a week or two of silence.

P.s  To everyone who attending our leaving meal on Brick Lane, especially Hannah and Kris, I'm sure you are dying to know the answer to the puzzle of the man who was in a hotel and made one phone call, didn't speak and then went to bed. He called the room next door as the man was snoring really loudly and then quickly went to sleep before the man started to snore again. I can't believe we didn't get it!!

Stay tuned....