I must have nodded off before waking with my right side neck muscles spasming. I guess the reclining seats were not made for our lanky bodies, well that pretty much sums up travel in Asia. Looking right, Laura was asleep beside me, doing her usual thing where she looks dead... Obviously the Diazapam helped. Honestly, when she sleeps she is dead still ...be an amazing statue! The train was moving along with the occasional bump and shuffle as it headed through the darkness of night. The idiot and his wife in front were now asleep after helping us develop bronchitis earlier. After trying to nod off again I developed a feeling which puts dread into any traveller! I bolted out of the chair and made for the toilet at the end of the carriage. This of course turned out to be a squat toilet. I won't go into details but as you can guess the next two hours were quite traumatic for me. If in the future, anything gets me down I will always say, "thank god I am not in that squat toilet in Vietnam". We will put it in the box, lock it and never mention it again.

The sun rose signalling a new day and hopefully, new hope. Laura had had bad stomach cramps waking her up from her sleep during the night but with no end result. We were in a right state us two, Asia may have finally beaten us. But we knew we had to fight on!! It was not long before the trolleys were being pushed down the aisle bringing food of all kinds. This included BBQ meat of various kinds, even frog if you would believe it. I couldn't really look at it at this point even though the smells did turn my stomach. It wasn't long before the man in front decided to light up another cigarette. We felt like saying something but knew it would just cause unnecessary trouble... He further turned our stomachs when his and his beloved sat and munched their way through half a dozen fertilised eggs. These are basically eggs that have been fertilised and therefore contain the foetus of a baby chicken, which is boiled alive then eaten throughout Asia. We reached Hue, our original destination after midday but we decided to see the train out to Da Nang. A beach was all we both thought about at this point and we were in no mood for any more sightseeing. The train journey between Hue and Da Nang is supposedly one of the best in the country. The train weaves its way around the cliffs over looking the blue bays of the South China Sea. It is a pretty nice train journey and sped up the trip significantly but it wasn't quite as impressive as hoped. Eventually after 15 gruelling hours, the train pulled up into Da Nang train station.

The station was busy and the sun was beating down very hard. Laura guided us out onto the street and we made our way east through town, towards the beaches. I wasn't quite prepared for how long the walk actually was. It was a total of four kilometres in the heat with all our stuff when already dehydrated, we must be crazy! We did stop off at a local place for an ice cold drink watching two local men play the Viet version of draughts. The locals were nice giving us the right price and even helping Laura put her heavy backpack back on... maybe this was real Vietnam. The road took us over a large river via a bridge where the bridge to the south was shaped like a golden dragon. After what seemed like an age, we eventually arrived on the strip near the beach. The next arduous task would be to find a hotel.....more importantly for a decent price.

The area was obviously developing fast as there were numerous construction sites building up what were like hotels. After attempting two hotels which were both full, we started to realise this was not on the western tourist trail. We had a breather in a hotel which was full and they explained this is peak local holiday season and most hotels will be full. Not the news we wanted to hear at this stage! I was feeling really rotten and Laura bless her decided to go enquiring around the local hotels in the area despite not feeling much better. Eventually on her return over an hour later and a good twenty hotels she reported finding a nice one which can hole us up for one night only, well it was better than nothing at this stage.

We turned up to the Lee Park Hotel thoroughly fed up but luckily the nice lady checked us in quickly. They had a lift.... bliss after constantly climbing up to six flights of stairs and the shower was most welcoming to wash off the grime which had accumulated over the last 20 hours. It had been some journey!

We were both absolutely shattered at this point and not to mention feeling rather ill. We decided to stay in for the evening and rest up, drinking tea and enjoying the pot noodles left over from the train. Hopefully tomorrow would be a much calmer, relaxed affair and our tummys would be better.