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Greetings avid fans of our updates!! And bored people at work too!!
Well...where were we?? Aah yes, Mui Ne...pretty quiet place but nice to be beside the seaside for a few days, plus we stayed somewhere with a pool which was lurvely! So after a few days of lounging we got the bus to Nha Trang and had an evening there before an early start the next day and a flight to Da Nang.
We weren't planning on staying in Da Nang, but it is only a couple of hours on the train from Hue and the ride is meant to be really scenic and beautiful so we thought we'd give it a go! It was indeed stunning looking out over the cliffs and the sea whilst still being able to see jungle on the other side, but the train was a little past it's best ie. most of the chairs were broken and stuck on permanent recline, including the ones in front of us! Also we were sharing a carriage with a very over animated Vietnamese family...crazy Grannies who didn't seem to have their own seat so just sat on other people and paced around, Mums who just listened to music rather loudly on their phone and 2 small rather porky boys who just ate!! However they were transfixed when I started playing a bit of Mario on the DS to kill a bit of a time when the train stopped...I suddenly had 2 small boys sharing my seat!!
After a long day of planes, trains and automobiles...we made it to Hue where we enjoyed a couple of rather more cultured days than in Mui Ne. We spent a few hours exploring the remnants of the old Citadel which is being painstakingly renovated after the Americans kind of flattened it, nice of them! We also did a day trip out to the DMZ (de-militarized zone) and saw loads of cool stuff from the war, like the Ho Chi Minh supply trail that ran from Laos through Vietnam and kept the North Vietnamese army equipped, some US bases way up high on rocky hills, a firebase from where shells were launched across the river and into the North and an 'ethnic minority village' which was basically just a load of platforms on stilts pretending to be houses and a load of cute ragamuffin kids begging. They weren't cute enough though I'm afraid, they kept asking for Gloria and The Skipper and we had to tell them a firm 'no' !! I felt like Angelina wandering in looking for her next child...!! 'I'll have that cute one with the funny eye...more sympathy that way'
Anywaaaay....so yes Hue was a nice stop for a few days and we had a nice hotel for a decent price so all good on that front! We also found a very nice Indian restaurant and had our first curry since leaving India which was yummy...I can't believe we had a whole month of curry and we still want more!!
We've both really enjoyed Vietnam, the people are really friendly and even the big cities seem way more relaxed than anything we experienced in India. Our guide on our DMZ tour was telling us how the people here don't dwell on the war or hold any grudges, he had himself been ousted from his village which was promptly bombed to destruction and then had to live in a refugee camp, but he was so chilled about it! He said they pay their respects every year and they don't forget, but they move on and don't concentrate on the bad stuff, which is amazing really as there are reminders of the war everywhere; bomb craters, damaged buildings etc. Oh yeah how did I forget??! Also on our tour we visited the Vin Moch tunnels which were incredible! They were dug by villagers to escape the bombing, and 350 people lived in them for 6 years! We had a look around some of them and they were amazing, they went on for 41km and had different routes at different depths for when the shelling was really bad. There was even a maternity room where 17 babies were born!! Poor Nick nearly broke his back stooping so much as they were obviously very small and a little claustrophobic (!) but a really good experience. We also visited a mass graveyard for soldiers killed on the Ho Chi Minh trail, there were over 10,000 graves there. We were given incense sticks to place on the graves as that is how the Vietnamese show respect for the dead. Seeing such sights as this make it all the more incredible the attitude the people have towards the history of the war and towards Western people, they are so welcoming.
We flew up to Hanoi today and are hoping to head off to Halong Bay tomorrow for a boat trip and overnight stay, so will report back on that soon! Hanoi is much cooler than elsewhere, it is 26 degrees here which is bliss after the last few days of mid 30's at least!!
Think we're going to head out now and find some grub...mmmmmm....bye for now folks....muchos love!! xxx
P.S. We have LOVED hearing exciting baby news from home on both sides recently...congratulations to all concerned!!!! xx
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