After a voyage on the starship enterprise night bus we arrived into the ancient city of Hue. We then walked 2 miles to our hotel with our backpacks. Shelly has a small fold up trolley for her backpack, so she normally walks with a smug grin, however when we come across some stairs the smugness is all mine.

Hue is an ancient city and used to be the home of the emperor. This imperial city used to be the capital of Vietnam until communism gained strength and the capital moved to Hanoi and later to Saigon. The city used to contain many impressive buildings until the American's campaign to aid the south Vietnamese required them to blow up 80% of the city. It still contains ancient structures and a very anti-American war museum. We spent the day exploring the city and the museum, but the heavy rain soon put an end to that.

We spent the following day doing a tour to the DMZ (demilitarization zone). This is an area that divided the North Vietnamese communists from the democratic South Vietnamese backed by the USA. This border is basically a very long river that covers the width of Vietnam. We also drove along the Ho Chi Minh trail that was built as a supply line to transport guns and ammunition from the northern communists to the Communist supporting Viet Cong army that was scattered throughout the south. It was interesting to see the bald patches on the landscape where the Americans had used napalm and "agent Orange". Even 40 years later the vegetation still has not recovered. We then went to a village and got to enter a tunnel system they had built to escape the bombing. This was an engineering masterpiece and showed the furtive determination and resolve of the Vietnamese during the war. We also stopped off to see the occasional tank and C130 left behind. The day was a great chance to learn and understand the Vietnam War. It did however involve many hours sat on a bus. Next time Shelly gets to choose what we do. Dress shopping here we come.

Well, rather fittingly, dress shopping is exactly what we got to do at our next stop, Hoi An, some 4 hours away by bus.  Wow, I (Shelly) loved this place. Its a cute fishing town, with lots of character, japanese style archtiecture, coloured lanterns and lights, great restaurants, GREAT SHOPS!!!   Hoi An is filled to the brim with tailor shops who will make you anything from shorts to a full suit.  I had told myself that I wouldn't have anything made, as we have no jobs,  so we cant afford it, simple really!  But I wasn't prepared for how gorgeous the dresses on display would be, the styles, colours, fabrics.  So, I had a dress made for me at the first tailors shop I set foot in.  Even Dom had a shirt made.  We were only BROWSING!!    I will have to go hungry for 2 days to pay for the dress now...Probably not a bad thing as I just can't stop eating the yummy food here.

Apart from the amazing shopping, (one of Doms favourite activities, along with skipping meals and sharing food) we spent our time here cycling around to the nearby beaches and hired a scooter to visit Marble Mountain.   Its great cycling here as it flat and the weather isnt too hot.  We did a free (love that word)  cycling tour with these 2 university students who showed us round the local boat building, carpentry workshops, rice fields and other local trades.  We even got to make and eat our own noodles.  These girls were lovely and were providing this tour in their spare time as a way to improve thier English. They did struggle to pronounce Dom and instead called him "chum". We got to learn some new Viatnamese words too, we expect to be fluent by the end of the month.

Next stop Nha Trang, the Viatnamese party capital. We arrived by sleeper bus, having shared the back section of the bus, with four squawking Vietnamese ladies.  They were friendly,  just really loud and completely oblivious to the fact that their talking (squawking) was keeping the whole bus awake.  Thats something we noticed pretty early on about the Vietnamese,  they are not quiet, bless them. Nha Trang is nice enough, with its long stretch of sandy beaches, but its very overdeveloped, and you didnt really get a sense that you were in Vietnam at all here, not helped by the fact that everyone here seems to be Russian!  There are apparently 3  planes arriving here from Russia on a daily basis. We didnt really get to see as much of Nha Trang as we would have liked, as our bus journey here almost certainly caused my 2nd bout of back pain this trip.  It seems my back takes offense to long periods of sitting down,  which is great when youre travelling isnt it??!!  For the 3 days we were here,  I waddled around, slowly, with my back bent as I couldnt straighten it!  Doms convinced Im making it up so I dont have to carry anything!

We did get to do a boat trip round the islands of Nha Trang, which was OK, totally cheesy with loud music and bad karaoke, but what do you expect for $5?  Did some good snorkeling though.   Oh and a visit to the mud baths was well worth it too, this wasnt what we originally planned to do, but as I wasnt up to anything strenuous, we gave it a go, and it was a good, cheap relaxing day out, with lots of mineral baths and pools to choose from once we had been in the mud. Dalat next.