Today we arrived in Hue and our second new years eve is almost upon us! we checked into our hotel the Waterland which had a great location for seeing the sights and the most friendly hotel staff we have met.

We spent our first real day visiting the DMZ on an organised tour with a couple from our Halong Bay tour and some of their friends. The tour gave us a good overview of the American War and we visited some key sights including part of the famous Ho Chi Minh trail. As part of the tour we also visited a small village where a significant amount of bombing took place to help survive the villages dug deep underground tunnels and lived in them whilst their village was being destoyed.

After a much needed lay in with our travelling companions we negoitated the hire of a river boat to take up into the Imperial City and then onto one of the many Pagodas that line the banks of river. However, part way into the journey the boat broke down we transfered to another boat and then realised that they were not going to take us to all of the requested places! Thankfully we hadn't paid them all of the money and the pagoda was indeed impressive.

That night went for dinner and drinks in Hue to soak up the new years eve atmosphere unfortunatly the rain had set in so Ben and I donned our $1 plastic ponchos, our hotel owner laughed a little when we turned up in reception and told us to hang on. She emerged a few minutes later with the real deal Vietnamese ponchos which was geat although I think their dog was living on Bens as it smelt a bit funky!

Whilst at the restaurant the rain did ease off and a group of locals had gathered and performed the traditional news years eve dance of the dragon, which brings good luck to local people and their business. As the evening began to draw in we all headed down to the river for the fireworks display. Not quite Sydney but they were much better than we expected and lasted about an hour! Locals were enjoying themsleves so much so that one person set of some firecrackers only to be surrounded by the Police seconds later, dragged away and roughed up reminding all of us of exactly where we were!

Our second new years day of 2012 without a hangover we walked from the hotel to the Imperial City the most acient part of Hue. A walled city with beautiful palace buildings and another World Heritage site which has seen a huge amount of restoration since the end of the war. We spent much of the day exploring the area and Ben even made friends with a Vietnamese tourists from De Nang who wanted to have his photo taken with us!