Well, what an experience that was! We booked an overnight train from Hanoi to Hui, and having been told all the tourist trains were fully booked, we booked what we were told was the next best thing;a soft sleeper train.

We waited at the train station and looked with horror at the hard sleeper carriages then the 3 tier carriages [we prayed we wouldn't be on one of those], so we were comparatively pleased to see the 2 tier ones; until we realised that one of us had to sleep on the top bunk which was a long way up with no ladder. Well, you know what I'm going to say, Dave being the 'gentleman' he is, bagged the bottom one, which meant I had to get my lardy arse up onto the top bunk in front of 2 grinning Vietnamese men who were to share our carriage for the night. The 'young one' leaped onto his top bunk to show me how to do it but I must have blinked because I completely missed the technique. The 'old one with no teeth' couldn't take his eyes off me and grinned throughout the whole process, they were jabbering away in Vietnamese throughout and, as I was imagining what they were saying, I was getting even more hot and bothered. All Dave could say was go-on, go-on, as though I was purposely playing for time.

Any way I got up , whereby I proceeded to pray I wouldn't need to 'go' in the night and, thank the Lord, my prayers were answered, we had a great night's sleep, our travelling companions turned out to be delightfuland I managed to 'wait' until we arrived at our absolutely wonderful Hotel [9quid a night for sheer luxury] in Hue.

Hue was lovely and we were beginning to think we should have stayed longer. We visited the ancient Citadel and took a cyclo ride around the city. I enjoyed the views but felt so sorry for the little stick men who had to ride their bikes around with us on the front. We ate more lovely food and drank more lovely cold cheap beer and had an early night ready for our journey to Hoi An.

And that's another story!