We arrive in Hue at about 11 am and all cram into one taxi, it's a roasting hot day here! We settle into our damp room and head straight into town for something to eat. We have dinner a Ushi's who gives us a enthusiastic greeting 'Ushi say hi!'. She apparently has a website and that is here catch phrase?! We're not that in pressed with the food but the beer Huda is refreshing! We're all a bit tired so decide to go to another hotel for the afternoon, it's good to swim, relax, sleep and see some fake French boobies (Karen spotted them).

In the evening we go to a 'Lac Thien' restaurant, the food is cheap but very tasty. The owner also entertains you with some bottle opening tricks and you can also write a 'I was ere' kind of message on the wall. Our guide, Dung, wrote ours and called me Math - there were a few Matts already on there so I appreciated the uniqueness of it. The owner then showed us some drawings on a piece of card board, weirdly he and his younger 6 siblings were all deaf, except for the oldest child. For desert we went to a local street side desert, it consisted of kidney beans, nuts, condensed milk, lychi thingys and some other stuff to, it was surprisingly yummy!

The next day we have a motorbike tour booked, our first stop is the Citadel, which is basically a Vietnamese version of a Castle. We then head to the Heavenly Lady Pagoda, it's very beautiful here and is up on a hill by the Perfumed river. The third stop is where the use to let the Tigers and Elephants fight, the only ring in east Asia. Sounded a little unfair as they would remove the Tigers fangs to ensure the Elephant won and also starve the Tiger to make sure they fought. To get here we have a crazy off road ride through back lanes, derelict land and really skinny bridges. The fourth stop is the conical hat and incense making village, we have ago at rolling our own incense, I'll admit Maggie's attempt was better than mine, but I think she had a little more help. The girl there can produce 2000 a day! We then go to an old army base and take some photo's, then stop at a Buddhist monastery for a vegetable lunch - amazing food mmmmmmm! At the monastery they look after around 200 orphans, we see some of the 2-3 year olds, it's a little sad but the kids are funny and seem to be really well cared for. We say good bye to the kids and go to our next stop, the Minh Mang Mausoleum, the scenery and scale of the place is impressive. Our guide here tells us he has 240 children and many concubines - busy man! We then go to the covered bridge and farming museum, there is an incredible older lady here she must have been about 90 and slowly walked out from the back room but as soon as she started demonstrating all the equipment she was extremely energetic, quite the performer! We then ride back to the hotel, get some dinner and then have some beer on the street with the locals who are shocked to see us there. A brilliant day and evening!