Hue (+ overnight bus journey from Hanoi) - We're gonna blog you from the Delta to the D-M-Z!

Finally….. getting out of the big city to travel south. Our journey started with an overnight bus ride from hell to Hue (6pm to 9am). It appears that those who can't hack it in Vietnam, drive buses!!! You squeeze into these narrow isles on the bus and then climb into your little bunk for the night. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but turning indicators are not used much in this country. Hooters are the method of choice for indicating, warning, shouting etc. So you either get a bus driver who drives very slowly and doesn't use his horn much, or like we've experienced more than once now - a hooter-happy driver who honks every 20 seconds, thus preventing you from getting any sleep whatsoever (and as soon as you do finally start to drift off, the driver would break fiercely causing you to slide around on your bunk). Poor Don, whose bunk was right at the back of the bus, was even air-born a few times during the night, when we travelled on sections of bumpy dirt road. Somehow he managed to get a massive bruise on his one knee in the process.

Arriving in Hue (pronounced heway), where we had arranged to be picked up from the bus station by someone from our hotel. We stepped off the bus and were greeted by a very friendly smiling guy on a scooter. After showing him our two big backpacks, he realised that he could not accommodate both of us, as well as our luggage on one scooter and called for backup. So there we were, with no choice but to get onto the backs of scooters with the drivers precariously balancing our backpacks in front of them, barely able to see over said backpacks and off we headed into a crazy sea of scooters and cars with no demarcated lanes nor traffic lights.

Not too bad, I must admit. I was more scared at school when one of my friends had to give me a lift on their scooter on one of the many occasions when mine broke down. Difference is that these Vietnamese guys KNOW how to ride.

We booked into our hotel and then it started - rain! However, with our new-found braveness for riding pillion on scooters, we booked a city tour and were picked up the next morning by an older Vietnamese guide and his friend. Soon after we left the hotel, it really started belting down (and it did not stop for 3 days!). Our ponchos we brought over from England were okay, but we were given full-on waterproof "suits" to wear, which was a god-send. We went to visit Tu Doc Tomb in torrential rain (see the pics). After lunch however, we decided to call it a day, as it was apparent that the rain was not going to let up and we would aqua-plane if we continued on the bikes. By the time we got back into town, most of the roads were already flooded, with some scooters riding in water so deep that their wheels were submerged.

Our DMZ tour for the next day was also cancelled, as the countryside was flooded as well. We were therefore forced to spend an extra day in Hue, as no buses were able to drive south to Hoi An either. That evening we waded around in calf deep water looking for somewhere to eat and browsing through some of the famous silk shops. What was amazing was that the Vietnamese just take the rain in their stride. In England, the world would've come to a standstill, but the Vietnamese just carry on - business as usual - despite the fact that many of the shops were already under 2 to 3 inches of water. Apparently, parts of the old citadel were covered with up to one and a half metres of water.

The following day, we went on a tour of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ or dee-em-zee as our American friends say it). Unfortunately, it was still overcast with sporadic rain, so most of our photos are pretty washed out ('scuse the pun). It wasn't a bad tour and took in the Khe San combat base, part of the Ho Chi Minh trail, the Doc Mieu fire base, the Rock Pile and the Vinh Moc tunnels. Although not much remains of most of the battle sites and firebases and urban development has taken its toll, they're still sombre and thought provoking places.