as you can see, i have still not sorted out the picture thing!! We travelled from Hanoi to Hue on the overnight train which held on to it's tracks very welll inspite of the wind and rain. At about half five am I looked out of the window onto what looked like sea, but was flooded paddy fields and watched the poplar trees in the distance bend in half! Hue was quite flooded, apparently it's fairly normal, happening about 7 times a year. we were very lucky with our timings as the mountain pass was closed the day we were in Hue and only just opened up for our drive to Hoi an, where I am now. There were still lots of large rocks, downed trees and land slides for the driver to negiociate though. Hoi an is a bit shopping town, and I am beating off requests to buy tiger balm and ceramic whistles every time I move, but has a really nicely preserved old quarter with original houses and various temples. Vietnam's mix of extremely religous history, god like kings and god status Ho chi minh is fascinating. Tomorrow we move on to a beach resort (!) but then we go inland for a couple of days to stay in village homesteads with the hilltribe people. am looking forward to that very much.