Hue and Hoi An

Our next stop from Hanoi was ancient city of Hue. After a rammed, long and drunken journey in a night train we arrived. Our hostel in Hue has to have been one of the nicest  we've stayed in since traveling. We had rose petals on the bed, drinks and fruit every time we came in and absolutely delicious breakfasts.

Hue has its own forbidden city which is very vast. It was very hot when we went so we couldn't explore too far.

 

The next day we took a tour of the ancient tombs and a dragon boat ride to a pagoda. We also visited a garden which contained lots of fruit.



The best bit of the tour was when we visited a kung fu show (so touristy and naff) and the tour guide in every move said; "wow very special" in the most deadpan and bored voice ever!

 
Our next stop was the beautiful Hoi An.On a river, with lanterns in loads of the trees. It was lovely with a wonderful beach a short cycle away as well as a lovely market and nice buildings. It was full of Australian holidaymakers but luckily it didn't feel too touristy!

 
 
On one of our days we took part in the Bamboo cooking class. We had both really been enjoying Vietnamese cuisine and this cooking class came highly recommended. It was absolutely amazing, an informative market visit was followed by about 12 courses!The food was amazing and we learnt absolutely loads about the culture. Lets just say we didn't have any dinner that night!










 

 

We visited a boat bar which was literally a tiny boat, a band, room for about 7 people and beer served in bowls, it was absolutely lovely and everyone joined in with the band.




 
 
Another highlight was visiting an old Chinese style teashop which was run by a charity for people which hearing and speech impediments.Instead of telling the waiter your order you wrote it down and used blocks to ask for the bill. All of the staff had hearing and speech impediments so this system allowed them to earn a living. The tea house was a lovely tranquil place, a nice calm in Vietnam!!


 
A couple of the days we hired bikes and cycled through the paddy fields to the absolutely pristine beach. It was absolutely perfect.
 


 

Hanoi and Halong Bay, Vietnam

We had both been really excited about visiting Vietnam. This had been increased by other traveler's stories; both the good (food is great, museums propogandatastic, the beaches beautiful) and bad (you'll get ripped off everywhere, there's always hawkers, pollution and the traffic).

Hanoi is centered around an old town and sprawls out beyond that. Each of the 96 roads of the old town is named after what was made and sold in that street.The roads may haven been busy, sometimes smelly and polluted but they were wonderful. Each street still sold what it was named after with a thoroughly modern twist. On tin street there was extracted fans aplenty, on silk street there were clothing shops with the latest fashions and on bamboo ladder street, well there was bamboo ladders!!!


The street food was absolutely amazing with stalls on every single corner selling one dish to crowds of people. We tried pho, bun bo, BBQ, hotpot and washed them all down with Hanoi beer. We also thoroughly enjoyed mooching around the night market at the stalls and were very impressed by some beautiful handmade cards we spied!!






 
In Hanoi we visited several museums including the women's museum and etymology centre. The women's museum was really interesting as it described all aspects of Vietnamese women's lives. Our favourite section was the women of the Viet Cong and the "Mothers of the Nation." it was really sad as these women had lost whole families of sons and husbands to the cause of the Vietnam war and were rewarded with a medal. We also learnt about some of the many women who fought the U.S.A as part of the Viet Cong. the museum listed how many successful kills they had made, which was very odd as you mainly hear the other point of view.We also visited the place which had been known as the "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam war andhad been the prison of many U.S. POW's including John McCain.

 
We both felt that Northern Vietnam had a very Chinese feel to it, with the architecture, the food and the culture. This was especially apparent when we visited a Confuscianist temple.



 

We also went on a trip to the famous Halong Bay. The bay contains loads of limestone islands and rocks looming up from the water's surface and is very beautiful. We decided to do a 2 night 3 day trip with 1 night on the boat and 1 night on an island.





 
We had a fantastic time on the boat and stopped for kayaking around a floating village and swimming off of the boat. The food was suprisingly delicious and we had great company. In the evening we had music and played too many games of ring of fire, resulting in some interesting photos!!





 
The next day we headed to the resort, which was pretty grotty. The sea was too choppy so we had to land the boat the other side of the island and trek (or scrabble) up a massive hill to get round to the resort with flip flops on and all our stuff!We were so grumpy!!!The views were stunning and overall we did really enjoy ourselves.

 
On our last night back in Hanoi we went to a traditional water puppets show. It was pretty interesting to see but we were glad that it finished after an hour. I don't think everyone found it as enthralling as we did though!!!!