The drive here is stunning, Up through the mountains and is worth every cent I paid for it. I was told the busses were full and had to do some smooth talking to get on one. I was surprised when we left with 2 empty seats but I shouldn't have been cos a few minutes down the road we stopped to pick up 4 passengers. As usual the mini bus was overloaded and a cramped ride for a few but luckily for me I was in the back seat and we only had 3 of us so it was OK. As I s...

Last night I went down to the river for dinner again. They are still chucking water, but now it is getting worse cos they are doing bog laps in utes with drums of water. I dont see why it is soo cool? If I wanted to do that I could have stayed home and probably would not have go any water borne diseases. Anyway I sat in the 'restaurant' eating dinner and some d*** sprayed me. I jumped up and grabbed him by the throat and was gonna give him a knuckle sarnie and hi...

I know you expected to see me in Paksan but I had to change cos I couldnt get transport north from there so I would have had to come here eventually so I came straight through. That makes two 11 hour days on the bus in a row. There was enough noise outside my dingy little room this morning to wake me in time to get the 6am bus. It was not the VIP but a local bus. In front of my seat were about 20 plastic stools so I kicked them out of the way and sat down. The bu...

I thought it was a dodgy bus cos I was picked up in a van. When we got to the bus station we had to hand over passports. Everything was looking dodgy. After some time we were shown to our bus, which was OK, and given back our passports. I still dont know why all the drama. The trip to the border was more or less along the DMZ. The DMZ happened BEFORE the Vietnam War. It was proclaimed when the Vietnamese were fighting the French. In fact the DMZ became one of the...

Im in Hue after a hell long train ride. I had a killer headache most of the way.Otherwise it was pretty good with some great scenery. Shame the windows were too dirty to get some good pics. I got here too late to go to the Citadel (the big sight here)so I will check it out tomorrow and book a bus to Laos tomorrow. I took a xe om (motorbike taxi) from Hoi An to Danang, about 30km, to get the train to Hue. I got a few pics of the marble mountains again but a bit di...