Beach Dudes, Golf and Shopping! After Hue we travelled on a very wet day to Da Nang and the old centre of the American Army's R and R. Here we see the bits of how the new tourism in Vietnam is developing. Massive hotels, apartment complexes, whole beachfronts bought up and, oh yes, golf courses. Greg Norman has one as does some guy called Montgomerie. A round of golf including shoes, cart and clubs is 2.5 million Dong or about £80. No time now to try it out but...

Driving South As we continue our way south the trip continues to provide challenges and surprises. We have recently been in Hue, a place that I recall was quite heavily mentioned during the 1960,s particularly during the Tet Offensive. We stayed in a huge hotel on the edge of the Perfumed River, one of the many that cross Vietnam owing their origins to the mountains of North Cambodia and Laos. We had a very nice room (again) in a huge hotel which for the first ...

Tunnels, Airport and the DMZ Busy day yesterday after our short rest at the luxury hotel. I think there was more staff than visitors but we deserved it!! Actually, it was rather surreal given what lay outside the complex. There was nothing different from the rest of Vietnam just that for ordinary people the gap between what we had and what they have is enormous in terms of comfort and quality. We had large beds, air-con and a massive breakfast of anything you wa...

Rural Life On Wednesday morning after breakfast we went for a stroll throguh the valley where the villagers farm. It was already clear that they mainly farm the staple of rice. Currently they are harvesting the crop and this is entirely done by hand. They use a scycle to cut a bunch of shoots which are then placed on the stalks to dry. Later these are collected together and carried by hand to the road side where a mechanical thresher removes the seeds. This wor...

Hanoi to Mai Chau: Madness to Magical Today epitomised the vast contradictions to be found in Vietnam. The beauty of the mountainous landscape only 100 km to the west and the peace and stillness of a rural valley where we spent the night replaced the madness that is to be found in Hanoi. We began at the Hanoi Hilton. No not a Hotel but the infamous prison where….now this poses quite and interesting issue. Latterly it took American airmen who had been shot dow...