Wednesday 28th December We get up and prepare to leave Hoi An. First things first though and we have to post the clothes and other stuff back home. At 12kg the parcel nearly weighs as much as one of our ruck-sacks. Me thinks that we may have gone a little bit crazy in this town. We are now used to the post office personnel rooting through our items (probably just to check that we are not sending illegal or items dangerous to the republic of Vietnam out of the country). The cost to send all of this home by sea is about 35 pounds. We are travelling by train to Hue as the scenery is reported to be amazing. At the train station we notice the same weird guys that have been following us up from Dalat. Dressed in identical brown khaki and brown cardigans with wide brim hats (complete with matching pink flowers) with matching ear piercings and only one small luggage bag between them. When we saw them in Dalat they were also dressed in (different) identical clothing. Very odd. The train arrives roughly on time and we are off up the coast. We sit in a 'soft seat' carriage and once more we are stared at by the locals for most of the journey. We are the only westerners in our carriage and perhaps they weren't expecting us to be sitting with them. Even though the weather is overcast the views are still amazing with wide bays and beaches on one side and huge mountains all around us and in the distance. We play scrabble and Amy wins by a few points. Stu is satisfied as at least he put up a bit of a fight. We arrive in Hue at about 3 in the afternoon and are immediately accosted by taxi drivers selling various hotels in Hue. We decide to go for the promising 2 star for about 7 dorrar (as promised by the driver) but of course it's a different story by the time we get to our accommodation with the room quoted at 15 dorrar. We are non too pleased by this and the hotel woman is saved a burst of anger only by her swift reduction of the rooms price to 10 dorrar a night. We agree that we are getting increasingly frustrated by the falseness of everything we are told in this country, if you are not prepared to question and barter over everything then you will get ripped off big time. Unfortunately our obsession in reducing the price to 10 dorrar a night may have cost us what little good service was going in this hotel. Still we are right in the middle of the main backpackersville and go out for a wander. It's now raining and cold. We decide the only way to cheer ourselves up is to 1) Go for beer and 2) Go for a Curry. Note to reader : Everyday is now a legitimate curry day as we have totally lost the sense of what the day and date is anymore. We are kind of working on Stu time which is a mixture of when the Spurs are next playing and how long ago it is since I won at scrabble. We book a load of tours for the next few days whilst we are in Hue, firstly the city tour tomorrow and the DMZ tour the day after. Thursday 29th December We are awoken at 6am by the traffic right outside our hotel. The old proverb in life is more and more true, you always get what you pay for. Still we are up and about by around 8 and decide to boycott the hotel breakfast. We go next door and pay just as much, that'll learn em. The reported 9am bus arrival arrives at 9.30am to pick us up for the tour. Apparently the Vietnamese are not able to judge timings as well as the rest of the world, since most of us realize that the same bus cannot be in 10 different pick-up spots at the same time. But hey don't worry as the bus is always "1 minute" away. We are already suspicious about the 6am start tomorrow for the DMZ tour. As usual the weather has closed in on us again and the drizzly rain is persisting down. We meet a nice NZ couple, one of whom was born in Vietnam and is just returning for the first time since his family escaped the commies in 1977. It was good to see Vietnam through his eyes for a little while. We spent the day looking at Hue's various sights, apparently it used to be the capital City during the Nguyen (possible incorrect spelling there) dynasty which ruled from 1850 ish to 1945. Some of the old Emperors built their own tombs whilst they were alive and it's all very nice and picturesque to see now (Feng shui has to be right), even in the rain. Lunch consisted of beef noodles, another local speciality which was yummy. The afternoon was spent visiting the Citadel, modelled on the one in Beijing (we've been there, got the T-shirt) but was not as comprehensive as the old yankee doodles had given it a right good bombing in the not too distant past. We then visited the pagoda where a famous monk lived before going to Saigon and burning himself alive in full public view. Can't remember why he did it, I think he was protesting against the government of the time. We take the 'dragon boat' back into Hue (basically a souped up catamaran which looks nothing like a dragon boat). In the evening we update the website and eat out for the outrageously expensive cost of 1 dollar each. Friday 30th December Yes, you guessed it, after crawling out of bed at some stupid time, the DMZ tour bus doesn't arrive until 0645. As you can imagine we are really pleased. Note to all: We are not sure where we are storing all this pent up anger and frustration but some poor little street seller kid is going to get two months worth of abuse soon, we just know it (and you'll be the first to know!). We meet an Aussie couple on the bus, who as it turns out have just arrive this morning from Hanoi on the overnight bus. Apparently they came across an accident and had to turf off all the locals so they could fit two bus loads of western tourists onto one. They have spent 2 months travelling in China so we have a good laugh about getting stared at and people spitting at you. We arrive just south of the DMZ (de-militarised zone for those dummies amongst you) which used to mark the unofficial 'border' between North and South Vietnam. We pick up our guide who is pretty well educated and speaks very good English (always helps). He proceeds to give us the Vietnamese version of the American war which is quite different to the one Hollywood has imprinted in our minds (sound familiar). He is obviously proud that the North Vietnamese liberated the South and one comment that sticks is that "the winners of the war always write the history'. So there you have it, the yanks were defeated in Vietnam for what seems now to be a bit of a useless cause. We visit the 'pile of rocks' which is basically well erm. A pile of rocks. It used to be a look out post for the Yanky Doodles (YD) but there is nothing to see now. We then moved on to the Khao San base which for some reason was built in a valley. Now I am no military expert but I would have thought that with so many hills and mountains around, why on earth would you build a major Marine base at the bottom in a valley, couldn't like people easily shoot and bomb you and stuff? We learn't a great deal about the war that day, seeing the old crossing of the 17th parallel marking the actual border between the North and the South. Apparently the YD's bombed the flag pole on the North side many times and the Vietnamese just re-built it higher every time in no time at all. We thought this was brilliant and typically Vietnamese - so focussed in what they do (which as we have found out is an endless drive for our cash). In the afternoon we visited the Vinh Moc tunnels and had a little crawl around inside. These tunnels extended for 1.6km and housed 400 familes, all to keep the supply line going for arms and stuff from the North 'liberating' the south. At the highest points we were able to stand up straight, but most of the time we walked around stooped over trying not to brush against the wet clay walls. We exit the tunnels on a beautiful beach which all seems really bizarre. We get back to our hotel pretty late for our flight to Hanoi at 9.30pm. And, guess what, the reported bus to take us to the airport is half an hour late. We give up trying to reason and just accept that we have just been fed another lie. So we move onto the capital tomorrow, again we haven't really had time to contemplate what lies ahead, you can be sure that we'll make the most of it. Keep the messages coming please, we love reading about what's going on back home. All the best StuAmy.