The three H’s: Hoi an, Hue in the central regions of Vietnam and Hanoi that I write this blog from now. Our last blog finished in Hoi an, the tailoring Mecca of Vietnam, and I like to think we took advantage of that with getting our fair share of things made. You may ask what? But I can’t say as some of them may be presents but I can tell you we had a fun 3 days walking around town having some great food and going into as many tailors as possible. You can pretty much get anything designed and made in any one of the 400 tailors from shoes to hats and everything in between. The town itself is very traditional with small streets lined with traditional houses beautifully carved from wood and stone. We also found some amazing little bakeries (can you see a theme to my blogs) selling some delicious cakes, the vietmenese definitely have great cake making skills. The little town is famous for of course tailors (check out the photo of me and the little manikin that featured in the Vietnam Top Gear special) but also the fact that it is un-changed from before the Vietnam War as it was a protected heritage site. We finished our few days in Hoi an with a bike ride around the area, past padi fields with grazing buffalos and along the coast which in places is unspoilt however you can still witness the debris and mess left from the storms and floods only a few months ago.

We took a sleeper bus (with an actual bed) from Hoi an to Hue even though the journey only took just over 3 hours! The bus was carrying onto Hanoi (another 13 hours) we just jumped off at the first stop. I’d have to say the comfiest bus journey so far, with Rhiannon even drifting off to dream land for most of it! Hue was a surprisingly big city, a lot bigger than we were expecting especially after spending a bit of time in Hoi an. I can’t say I was overly impressed but that may have been because of the rain as it managed to rain for our day and a half there and pretty much made you feel damp the whole time. Even though it did rain we managed to check out all that Hue had to offer with the a little Rhan walking tour taking us around the Citadel (walled city) built to house the royal family and on a hunt to find Elephants, that used to be housed within the Citadel but who were either hiding or long gone! We did find some abnormally big gold fish though, that got aggressive when fed, leaping out of the water to catch whatever tourists threw in.

For the 13 hours from Hue to Hanoi we decided to take another sleeper bus but this time to actually sleep, or try, as we travelled through the night arriving in Hanoi at about 6am. Not the best night’s sleep with the driver honking his horn every few minutes and only just enough room to swing a cat around! All I can say is thank god I’m not any taller or I may have been sleeping in the passage way. Hanoi is similar to Saigon just on a slightly bigger scale in terms, I think but to be honest its hard to tell, as both cities have crazy roads with hundreds of motos jostling for position at every junction. This was particularly good last night when the power went off in town, and all hell broke lose on the streets with everyone just going at the same time and ignoring all junctions. We managed to find a great spot to watch this from high above the street, enjoying a cold beer. We’ve spent a day and a half here taking in the sights from the many shops and cafes to the bustling street markets and not forgetting a cool (but slightly creepy) water Puppet show. This is a traditional northern Vietmenese puppet show preformed in water, broken up into little bits showing all aspects of Vietnam life from Farming to religion, a cool little show watched by more locals than tourists. We also spotted some apparently lucky turtles swimming in the city lake.

The next leg of our journey takes us up into the mountains of north west Vietnam and the mountains of Sapa something we’ve both been looking forward too. Were even travelling there in luxury (we hope) as were travelling by sleeper train in the “Deluxe” class. Rhiannon can let you know how “Deluxe” it was in our next blog!

Lots of love Dan