I forgot to mention that Sapa was extremely wet and muddy, yet we didn't get any rain (unless it happened when we were sleeping). I still have a bruise on my foot from the 12km trek we did on Friday. Would've liked to stay longer in Sapa but to do another day's trekking would be hard. The Friday trek was very difficult with lots of mud, rocks in the road and steep ascents/descents. I ripped a 30cm hole in the front of my Canterbury tracksuit pants when i was going down a hill and spreading my legs from spot to spot.
Saturday 4/12
The train back from Sapa was a much worse sleep than going to Sapa. We coincidentally ended up in the same cabin as our friends from the journey there. We may meet up with them later. We arrived in Hanoi at 5am, there was not much open at all, saw a moto with four gutted pigs riding on it. We had to literally sit in the hotel lobby til 7:30am when we could go out for breakfast and go to the Hoa Lo P.O.W prison. The streets were dead til 6am (sunrise) then they just came to life. A guest at the hotel was up (and looking fresh) at 5:30am and went out on a motorbike, strangest thing.
I had Bun Cha (grilled pork in a noodle soup) for breakfast and it was to die for, the best meal i've had so far. The Hoa Lo prison was nothing special but still worth a visit if you have spare time. We headed to Ho Chi Minhs mausoleum after where there was a long but fast que to see him. We headed off to the airport to catch our flight to Hue at 12pm. It was $79 and a one hour flight, the other option was train (or bus) which was $44 (train) and would take 12 hours. We had had enough of long train trips thank you very much.
Got into Hue and it was raining (and has been on and off since then, albeit not hard or long at all), taxi to the city was 140 000D. We went to Binh Ninh Sunrise which was the "our pick" in the LP guide. Room was $16 p.n. Much nicer room than Sapa and very friendly staff. We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner and had pizzas. Not too bad considering it's in Vietnam and made by Vietnamese. Had an early night and enjoyed a proper sleep.
Sunday 5/12
We had effectively spent less time in Hanoi than planned so this day was devoted to absolutely no touristy type activities. We did alot of shopping along the streets (didn't get anything though), put our 4kg of washing into a laundry and put my pants in to be sewn up and another pair of cargo pants i had that needed the legs taken up, all up 125 000D and ready the next day. We had Indian for lunch and it was very very nice. Kay even enjoyed it and she is not big on Indian. It was mentioned in the LP guide.
Spent the afternoon watching TV shows, most notable was a telemovie (?) with Rosie O'Donnell called America, about foster kids. We tried to find another LP guide mentioned restaurant but we got totally lost so we settled for this Vietnamese place called Phoung Nam which was full of Westerners and locals. What a gem it was. I had Bun Bo Hue (beef noodle soup from Hue), Kay had a squid noodle dish, we shared a Hue pancake and each had fruit shakes, which were delicious. I mango-papaya, Kay had mango-banana. I also had a 'festival' beer, which only cost 8000d or $0.40!. All up it was 92 000D ($4.10) for all of that!!!!
Monday 6/12
Went on a tour (8am start) f the tombs of the Nguyen Emperors along the Perfume River and to Tien Mu pagoda. Tien Mu was quite disappointing considering it is the most famous one in Vietnam, Nam Tien temple in Wollongong is much larger and much nicer.
Lunch was included in the tour, lunch that was green beans, tofu and rice. Not happy. We saw a demonstration of Vietnamese kung fu, which cost 30 000D. Our guide was constantly talking about how the Chinese always wanted to take Vietnam but never could because the Viet people are too strong. He made the joke that "if all Chinese pee'd in the Red River (goes through Hanoi) then all of Vietnam would become flooded".
We only visited two of the tombs as you had to pay 55 000D admission fee to each. Considering we paid for the tour, we were slugged at every corner. We visited Minh Mang's tomb, who had ~600 women in his life, be it wives or concubines, although only had 128 kids. Second was Tu Duc's tomb which was a huge area but the tomb itself was small. He was a poor Emperor and the one that effectively allowed the French to annex Vietnam in the late 19th Century. Also had no kids. Useless?
We got back to our hotel at 4pm and went inside to relax. Picked up our laundry and had Indian again for dinner. Went to some travel agencies to get quotes for an open tour bus ticket, which will take us to Hoi An, Nha Trang, Da Lat and Saigon for only $25 each. We can organise to leave on any date (depending if the bus is full or not though). The longest leg will be Hoi An to Nha Trang at 12 hours, but it;s overnight and a sleeper bus, literally you can lie down in it. We had seen many of these and they look good.
Tomorrow we will visit the Hue Citadel and the market over that side of the river. Plan to return to Phuong Nam for dinner. We leave for Hoi An Wednesday afternoon, 4 hour trip.
p.s having alot of trouble getting into facebook, it won't display on my firefox portable browser or the computer internet explorer. Also tried other computers and got the same result.
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