Hue

So after a long day yesterday we got onto the bus.Was surprised at how many "beds" they managed to fit in. Was rows of bunkbeds either side of the bus and on row down the middle. never seen anything like it! We were shown to our assigned bunk, hopped up and got comfy (or as comfy as we could) for the night. We weren't the only foreigners on the bus, there were two australian couples behind me and charlotte and an american family with young kinds in front. The rest of the bus was all Vietnamese. When we saw the pull down screen tvs,we thought oh good... maybe it won't be so bad afterall... however, when the film went on.. some kung fu one with jet li  and subtitled in vietnamese we found other things to do,... such as read a book.... which worked for all of five minutes but then they turned the lights out.... 11 hours to go!. great!

So the road was very bumpy, and noisy and there were lots of sudden stops i presume when a motorbike pulled in front in which we all nearly got thrown out our beds... nightmare!. It wasn't alll bad but certainly don't look forward to doing it again in a hurry.  15 hours later (should have been 12) we arrived in Hue. Very tired and dying for a shower. Lots of people were crowding aroudn the bus so was difficult to even get off for a start and some people were carrying on, on the bus til Hoi an... they were getting off to make sure their bags stayed on the bus. A guy approached us wearing a black vest thing with freedom riders asking if we had a hotel... i bluntly replied yes it is all sorted.... having read stories about people tryiong to take you all sorts of places... eg.. not the right hotel and so on.. but he said have you got a taxi and he would take us to our hotel. i asked how much, he replied 10,000 dong.. roughly  50 cents. which sounds about right, so tired as we, were we agreed, just dying to get in shower and rest. Little did we know we would be going on back of motorbike... which as i've mentioned before is main mode of transport around here.
Was fun! Turns out, his name is Mr. Tai  a freedom rider in Hue... and he does tours for a living.. Me and Charlotte have been wanting to go off the beaten track abit and seen the REAL Vietnam instead of the touristy stuff, so we sat down to coffee with him and discuss our options. He and his brother pulled our two full books of reviews from people he has taken on tour and he is recommended on trip advisor.. one of the legit ones. We decided to take a 3 day 2 night tour from Hue to Hoi an, going up to the DMZ zone and down through the Ho chi minh trail through the mountains, minority villages to Danang and finishing in Hoi an. Everything is included in the price except meals... so thats transport, guide, tickets, accomodation.. everything. good deal :) so we leave tomorrow 9am... on a motorbike... top gear style haha. Don't worry those of you reading this thinking i've gone off my rocker, i would not be doing it if i didnt think it was ok, loads of reviews have said he is a really safe guy, takes care of you  and he seems like a real nice easy going guy and his brother is too. tai has been doing it for 7 years now and his brother for 4 so i feel we are in safe hands.. :)

Anyways after meeting them and organising, we went to visit the Citadel,unfortunately was hard to enjy most of the sites as Hue is wayyyy hotter than Hanoi, it is a very different heat, and it is impossible to walk around in without feeling like you are burning to a crisp.... even with sun cream on! We looked around, some of the walls still have bullet holes in it form the war, sudddenly makes it all real , of which im sure will hit home even more when we go to the DMZ tomorrow.. The area where Vietnam was divided into north and south and where the majority of the fighting took place in the war.  After a little sightseeing we reitred to our hotel room. Not exactly vietnamese but we felt we earned it after our 18 course vietnamese food binge the other day. as nice as it was!.

Anyways thats all for now, time to go shower and bed. long day tomorrow..  will write again in Hoi an probably.
love sara xxx