hello, very quick journal because we were only in Hue for one day, one night, two curries. We went on a motorbike tour of the city because we were leaving to get the overnight train that night so we wanted to see as much as possible.. It was so much fun..the motorbikes went through some incredible countryside on the way to the Japanese bridge, with the roads being completely covered in hay and there being wee animals everywhere. All the women were out either working in the rice paddies, washing clothes and dishes in the stunning wee river or sitting about in big groups drinking tea and gossiping (which they seem to do alot..). Anyway, we saw some really nice sights and our drivers only nearly killed us once. They were full of interesting facts about the history of the place. For example, our favourite story was of the "fortunate" King who had at least 140 concubines and not one child, or as our guides summed up: "one banana, many coconut - maybe he broken". There were other good stories, with the obvious one being about the monk who set himself on fire in the middle of Saigon in protest of President Dieu's intolerance of Buddhism. Again however, the guides amused us with their take on the more personal stuff that only comes with experience of the area. There is a tomb in one of the pagodas dedicated to a life-long monk who died at the age of 95. Quite an achievement. However, our guides lamented that whilst they might die younger ("maybe 77 or so"), the poor monk "had no tiger beer NUMBER ONE, no woman, and no Bob Marley! - no woman, no cry...", and gave us a couple of verses of that famous tune. He also assured us that when we went to see some monks chanting that they'd give us some Bob Marley. Liar. Anyway that was about it for Hue, but it was a classic wee day. Love from Jenny (who wrote a bit) and Colin (who wrote the rest because I couldn't be bothered remebering. It was a long time ago.)