Greetings from Hue, Vietnams last Imperial City. At the moment its also Vietnams rainiest because we are writing this during a torrential downpour as we wait for our bus to Hoi An in our Hotel.

Last Thursday, after we wrote our last blog entry, was to be our last day in Hanoi and so we tried to make the most of it. During the day we took in some of Vietnam's culture by having a look at the Ho Chi Minh museum, his Mausoleum and the War Museum. The museum was quite strange as it was basically a bum lick to Ho Chi Minh, and a lot of the exhibits didn't have English writing on. But we did see a crazy looking table, chairs and fruit bowl. The Mausoleum and the War Museum were closed however so we decided to investigate an area on the map called "Delicious Area". We had a beer, and it was delicious. The evening was very entertaining, starting with a few beers in our hostel as it was 'happy hour' 2 beers for the price of 1. We then walked around Hanoi looking for Flip Flops and ended up at a Jazz club. After a beer and some mediocre Jazz we went back to the Hostel and an Aussie took a few of us to an Irish Pub called Finnigans. Very busy. We got talking to a group of Aussies/Americans/New Zealanders and they took us to an after hours place called Roots. Very eerie as there was no one around and we had to bang on the shutters to get in...We awoke the next morning with a raging hangover and a bus to catch to Ha Long Bay.

Ha Long Bay was a little dissapointing as the sky was very overcast and it was foggy. The scenery was spectacular though (see photo) and seemed almost spooky as we drifted quietly among hundreds of these rocks poking out through the fog. We were on whats known as a Junk Ship which had about 20 people on board. We got talking to a few of them as we went Kayaking through some lagoons and visited an impressive cave. All in all a good trip.

We have to collect our stuff from the room in about 10 minutes so can't write more.

Will update Hue next time.

JDJ