During a tour today some aussies told us about the boat sinking in Vinh so we thought we'd just post a quick message to reassure you that it had nothing to do with us. It is about 300km to the north but we know some of you would like the reassurance.

Being ripped off, or avoiding being ripped off is a really big deal in Vietnam. What ever you buy here from coke to bus tickets it constantly feels as though you're paying over the odds. We've tried to learn something each time it happens and we're getting better at it all the time! We mention this because we've had a couple of 'wins' in Hue that we've been pleased with, these included booking out own tickets direct with the train station (after paying far too much for the ticket from Cat Ba to Hue) because they are then a fixed price, rather than through an agent. Although this may seem like common sense train stations are often many miles out of town so this can be difficult in some places.

Todays tour seemed like a really good deal, then looked like a rip off but ended up being just right! We were sold the tour of the Citadel, Pagodas and Tombs on the basis that entry for all was free on Tet, something we'd heard from quite a few people and according to our tour guide had been reported on state radio. When we got to the first tomb it turned out only the Citadel was free and that only applied to Vietnamese nationals.

We did pay for the first tomb (pictures included) because the guide said it was the best one but after that he put together an alternative ittinary on the fly and drove us to loads of free places and explained the history and the significance of them. The guy even drove the bus to vantage points over the places that should have been free so we could take pictures and he explained that most of them were too small to bother paying for anyway! He could have easily just stuck to the original route and made us feel like we had to pay for the tombs but we had a really nice morning. Seeing the monks at prayer and hearing them chanting was a particular highlight.

The tour was booked through Thu's cafe. The only down side of the tour is that everytime the tour guide said 'Buddha' he pointed at me and now Steph insists on calling me Buddha. Apparently it's nice because they're cheery!!

Lots of Love

Greg and Steph