After being dropped at Haiphong bus station after leaving Cat Ba island, we had a few hours to kill until our connecting night bus to Hue.

With our big bags on our backs, we wandered up the main street of the city, alongside a long lake or canal which seemed to run the length of the street. We kept our eyes out for a cafe which might be a nice place to sit for a while, and would hopefully have wifi. We tried one place but the staff spoke no English and they only had about 3 odd drinks on their menu, so we carried on wandering around until we found a KFC.

We took refuge in the air conditioned cool of the KFC and ordered some ice cream, then sat there in the mood for doing very little to wait until it was time to catch our bus. After an hour or so, in a badly timed move, we decided to order some chicken for our dinner just in the middle of the post-school KFC rush hour. I had to stand at the counter to order while every single child in the place snuck up behind me to compare their height against mine and snicker with their friends at my gargantuan proportions. This turned out to be a common theme throughout Vietnam, as people would openly gawp and point at me, or sneak up behind me like the kids, yet they seemed to get incredibly offended whenever we looked at them.

After eating our chicken and having had enough of feeling like a chimp in a zoo, we hefted our bags onto our backs again and walked back to the bus station to wait for our night bus, in the fairly stifling evening heat.

Eventually our bus started loading and we got our bags loaded into the luggage compartment before trying to climb into the bus. This proved more difficult than we had planned as the lady in the bus refused to let Lucy go on before me, for some unknown reason. After we figured out that I had to go on first, we removed our shoes and put them in plastic bags as instructed, then took stock of the inside of our first sleeper bus.

Instead of seats the bus had 3 rows of narrow bunk beds with raised head portions, arranged along 2 aisles. According to our tickets we had seats 6 and 7, which we found were two of the seats in a row of 5 across the back of the bus. We crawled into our little cave beneath the top bunk and tried to make ourselves comfortable, not easy when the seats have been designed for people 3/4 of one's size.

Nevertheless, I acquired a semblance of comfort with my feet sticking out into the aisle in front of my bed, as we set off for our journey to Hue. Immediately the bus was too hot, a common theme in SE Asia up to this point. I went up to the front to ask the driver about the A/C a few times with bewildered responses but at some point during the night they did turn it on.

By the time they had done this though, we were already sticky and sweaty and just made our best efforts to get some sleep as the bus hurtled through the night, dodging other vehicles along the road on our way south. Occasionally I would wake from snoozing to look out the front window of the bus, only to see us careering straight towards a vehicle on the other side of the road.

The journey continued in this fashion all through the night, until at around 6am we pulled into a reasonably sized bus station. Thinking this would be our stop we were all set to get off, but soon realised it wasn't Hue. In fact, we didn't arrive in Hue until some 7 hours later, the journey having taken 19 hours in total.

Thankfully along the way we stopped for lunch, which was provided free as compensation for the journey taking so much longer than planned. Also, the driving during the day was a bit less terror-inducing.

When we finally got off the bus in Hue, at a rainy downtown bus station that could have been anywhere, we got a taxi to an area we knew had a high concentration of hotels. We ended up going for the first one we looked at as they had a really nice room at a good price, with included breakfast, and we couldn't be bothered looking around for anything else. By this time it was around 2pm.

After settling into our room, we decided to find some food nearby. After a look on Tripadvisor, we took a stroll down the alleyway right beside our hotel, finding it full of small and cosy bars and restaurants. At the end of the alley we found Nina's Cafe, where we took a seat and had some spring rolls and local Huda beer.

After our tasty snack we went for a walk through the dreary afternoon, down to the wide river nearby which didn't look its best under the grey and rainy skies. We walked under one of the two main bridges and along the paved promenade on our side of the river, across from the old town.

There wasn't a great deal of interest to see in the area so we went back to the hotel, resolving to explore the more interesting areas of town the next day when the weather would hopefully be a bit nicer.

Back at the hotel we relaxed in the room for a bit before going out for dinner. Again based on some online recommendations we went to the Indian restaurant next door to our hotel, which proved to be excellent. We had a couple of nice curries with naan and rice and some lassi (Not Lassie, even though we were in Vietnam) before going back to the hotel and getting a decent sleep after our grim night on the bus.

The next morning we got up to find the weather no better, and the rain bucketing down outside. We had our nice free breakfast in the hotel, then decided to go out and explore, as we couldn't wait around all day on the off chance the rain would stop.

We left the hotel and were soon soaked as we walked through the streets in our area of town to get to one of the bridges. With the downpour it wasn't long before we were offered some plastic ponchos by an enterprising lady passing on her scooter, selling to drenched or about-to-be-drenched customers. After shelling out and equipping ourselves with bright purple ponchos, we continued across the bridge to the old part of town.

Once across the bridge we soon found ourselves at the wide moat surrounding the tall red-brick walls of the old city. We walked across a narrow bridge and through a tunnel in the thick walls, dodging motorbikes and cars using the same route to find ourselves in the huge walled compound of the old city.

We walked through open grassy areas in the rain to the imposing gateway into the imperial city, a citadel within a citadel from where Vietnam used to be ruled.

We paid our entrance fee and walked through one of the numerous gates in the huge gateway into the imperial city, then wandered around exploring the place for a while. Set over a large area, the imperial city had lots of wide open spaces with the crumbled foundations of former buildings, as well as some still standing around paved courtyards, often joined by long covered corridors open to one side. It was quiet thanks to the rain, which leant the place a lonely, desolate air quite suited to its state of repair.

We enjoyed walking around exploring the place, including some temple complexes which were in good repair and ornately decorated, some with cool drains on the roof in the shape of fish which were spouting torrents in the incessant rain.

When we had satisfied ourselves looking around the imperial city and had climbed up for the view over the rainy old city from the gate structure, we left, avoiding the guys touting cyclo rides at the gates, and walked back out and across the moat of the old city. We followed the moat, thick with lillies floating on its opaque surface, along the slightly curving walls of the old city, until we reached the city's main market down by the river again.

The market wasn't anything particularly special, but provided a distraction for a while as we wandered through the tightly packed passages of shops and stalls selling everything from paint to fresh herbs to kitchen appliances, most with the stallholders sitting on a tiny stool in amongst a mountain of their products.

After looking around the market we walked back along the riverside, passing a lady loading tens of live geese and chickens into a cage on the back of her moped, and across the bridge upstream, nearer our hotel.

We walked back towards our hotel but stopped for a snack at a French style boulangerie, which turned out to be run by another NGO training disadvantaged kids in baking and service skills. We had a croque monsieur and a cake to share before going back to our hotel just down the road.

Back at the hotel we chilled out in the room for a while, until we got hungry again. Before heading out we decided to book one of the offered river cruises for the following day, which stopped at numerous sights along the river. Of course the price, in Vietnamese style, didn't include entry to any of the attractions and, while it included lunch, we were told that it was very basic and we'd probably have to pay to get a decent lunch. Nevertheless, we signed up in the belief it would be the best way to see some of the sights around the city, such as the tombs of the former emperors dotted around the countryside.

We then took another walk down the alleyway beside the hotel and this time went to Family House restaurant, a tiny place with about 3 tables which seemed to be in someone's living room. We got some tasty food here and got chatting to an older Australian couple at one of the other tables while we ate.

After dinner we walked a little bit further down the alleyway and decided to check out the fun-looking Liberty Bar. Inside, we found they had a free pool table, cheap beer and Jenga on some of the tables. We got a drink and sat playing Jenga for a while, until we got talking to a group of 2 Welsh guys and a Kiwi girl who was married to one of them.

We stayed in the bar for a while, and were just about to leave when an Australian guy came in, having heard the sound of pool balls from his hotel across the road. Since we were the only people left in the bar, I thought I'd have a game with him before we called it a night and we spent more time talking than playing as we conducted possibly the World's Longest Game of Pool.

It turned out the guy, Matt, was travelling with his wife and two sons aged 11 and 5, on their 5th trip in South East Asia. I was intrigued by how it would be travelling with kids and it was interesting to hear how much the local people warmed to them when they realised they were travelling as a family, with family such an important part of life in that part of the world.

After our game, and a few more beers, we said our goodnights and Lucy and I walked back up to our hotel. We watched a bit of TV before heading off to sleep in preparation for our tour the next day.

In the morning we made sure to get up in time to get our free breakfast, managing to wolf it down just before a pair of drivers turned up to ferry us on their scooters to the riverside to catch our tour boat.

It was another dreich day, but we hoped the tour would still be interesting and not too much of a ripoff. At the riverside we got chatting to a French girl, Marie, who was going on the tour and then Matt and his family turned up, also going on the same tour.

We all piled into the dragon boat, a longish covered barge with a stylised metal dragon's face at its prow and took our seats on plastic garden chairs along its interior.

We set sail down the river, away from the built up areas of the city and we soon had trees flanking us along the wide river. We reached our first stop, a walled garden, and all piled off the boat. We opted not to pay the entrance fee as we didn't think it would look its best in the rain and waited outside with about half of our group while the others had a look inside.

We then got back on the boat and carried on down the river to the next stop at a pagoda which was free to enter. We pulled into the riverbank and were informed we'd have about 20 minutes to look around the place. We climbed up the stone steps leading up from the water of the river and further steps between tall painted pillars to a 7-levelled tower at the entrance to the pagoda.

Behind this, past some colourful raised carvings of soldiers with actual hair for their beards, was the main compound of the pagoda, which we walked around for a look. Even in the damp weather it was quite pretty, with nice views of the river and attractive gardens. We saw and heard some monks at prayer in one building and saw a display containing the car from the famous photograph of the monk Thic Quan Duc setting himself on fire in protest (Used as the cover of Rage Against the Machine's self-titled album).

We made our way back to the boat in time, not wanting to get left behind, then got on board for the sail to our next stop. This was a temple built on the riverbank, up steep and slippery stone steps leading up from the water. We once again opted out of paying to go into the temple as we could see most of it from the paved area we waited at, and we wanted to save our money for the emperor's tombs later in the day.

After our group returned from the temple we all regrouped aboard our boat for lunch. The rear portion of the boat seemed to be someone's house, with a little ktchen and beds laid out. Some ladies back there had prepared a really tasty lunch for us of steamed rice, some vegetables and some delicious tofu in a spicy sauce. We all got stuck into this and then the boat got moving to our next stop, the final one on the boat.

This was the tomb of Ming Manh, one of the emperors of the Nguyen dynasty of Vietnam. We had heard this was one of the better tombs to visit, so after walking down the long dirt driveway from the river to the entrance, we joined everyone on our tour in paying to enter.

Describing the tomb as just a tomb doesn't really do it justice. The place was more like a huge walled complex with lakes, quiet gardens, courtyards filled with statues, pagodas and then the tomb itself, not accessible by the public and contained behind a circular wall on an island in the middle of one of the lakes.

We spent our full allotted time (not quite long enough) exploring the lovely grounds of the tomb, which were apparently arranged in the shape of a prostrate human form, though this was impossible to see from ground level. The rain only added to the atmosphere as we explored the dripping temple-like buildings and wet paved pathways between the lakes.

Soon it was time to leave if we wanted to get back by the time our guide had stated. We found ourselves rushing to get down the driveway, only to have to take shelter under the bamboo roof of an abandoned stall and wait for ages until our group converged, and it was deemed that we could board the bus which had been sitting there the whole time.

On board the bright pink bus, we then set off through the rainy countryside to another nearby tomb. This one, we decided not to visit but we could get a decent view of it from the road. It was rather impressive, with structures built of dark stone stretching up a steep hillside above the road around sets of steps.

Once everyone was back from looking around that tomb, we got back on board the bus for the drive to the final tomb, that of Tu Duc, another emperor of the Nguyen dynasty. This tomb had a similar layout to that of Ming Manh but had a different feel once inside. Paths ran around the place between various buildings, with sheer stone walls dropping to a picturesque pond full of lillies which ran throughout the grounds. Once again the rainy, grey weather lent the place a fantastic atmosphere, and we enjoyed wandering along the old stone paths, between the buildings and trees, triggering 'booby trapped' loose stones which squirted water up our ankles. We wandered up and down stone steps, exploring the pagodas and courtyards with their statues of mandarins (not the fruit) and horses before returning to the bus for our allotted departure time. We really didn't feel we'd had enough time to get the most out of any of the places we'd stopped, another reason why we weren't keen on tours.

Once we were all back on the bus we set off for town. Along the way we were given the recommendation of a particular restaurant in Hue by our guide and cards were handed out for the place in question. Low and behold, shortly thereafter we drove straight past the boat dock where we had started our journey that morning and were dumped somewhere in town, at the self same restaurant.

Everyone on the bus was a bit miffed at being dumped in some random street, and needless to say nobody went into the restaurant. We were lucky enough to have our map and a decent sense of direction, so set off immediately for our hotel, a bit annoyed at the extra half a kilometre we had to walk in the rain thanks to the underhand sales tactics of the Vietnamese. To make matters worse, when we had a look at the time we realised it was only half past 3, when the tour had been advertised as running until half past 4. The one thing we had been annoyed about was the lack of time at each stop, but if they had given us 15 minutes more at each, we would have been back at the correct time and would have had enough time to at least get a proper look at the places.

once back at the hotel, Lucy called home on Skype and I dropped off for a nap for while.

When I got up in the evening we went downstairs and booked a bus to Hoi An for the next day. We had arranged earlier to meet Marie, the French girl from our tour who we had been chatting to, and once she arrived we all headed out for food. We once again went down the alleyway by the hotel, where everyone seemed friendly and there was always something going on, and went to Nina's Cafe again.

We had some really tasty noodle soups and some spring rolls as well as a few Huda beers, before nipping over to Liberty Bar again for some more beer and Jenga.

In the bar we found Matt, his wife Carolyn and their boys Huon and Lochlan as well as an English couple from the tour earlier who had obviously been drinking since the minute we had gotten back from the tour.

We all had a fun night in the bar, spoiled somewhat by the drunken English guy who insisted on playing The Smiths songs on an endless repeat on the bar owner's computer-cum-sound system. We played Jenga and pool and had a few drinks, then sat outside with the the bar owners for a bit before calling it a night and walking back to the hotel to get off to bed.

In the morning we got up and packed, once again in time to get our free breakfast before the driver turned up to take us to our bus to Hoi An. Despite the miserable weather and poor tour, we'd had a really fun time in Hue, but we were ready to move on and hopefully get some nicer weather.