29 Dec - Hue to Hanoi

A slightly reasonable 8am to start for our 20 km bike ride through Hue (Pronounced 'Who-way') to the city outskirts to see the coliseum where the Vietnamese emperor would be entertained by elephants and tigers fight each other. This used to go on from about 1850 to 1945 until the French took over. The remains including the elephant tombstones were still in reasonable condition and you could still see the claw marks left by the tigers. It was just round the corner from the incense makers were located and a few kilometres away from our tour rep's own house. With the small issue of my bike's chain snapping (support team didn't seem to lubricate the chains at all over the holiday), we rode back to Long's for lunch of more spring rolls and noodles.

Whilst following a moped back into Hue, we stopped off at two tourist places. The first was the Imperial Palace. Hue was Vietnam's capital before the war and the emperor lived here for a few generations. Some interesting parts but I think I was too knackered to be that bothered about it. Getting an ice-cream was one of my highlights. The second was the 7 story pagoda where the monk who set himself on fire came from.

The cycling was over and we had a relaxing boat trip back to our hotel down the Perfume river. Sounds very mystical but was quite a wide flat river. The boat itself like the other tourists boats had two colourful dragon mast heads at the front.

Back at the hotel before our overnight train to Hanoi, I visited the hotel's beauty saloon to get a haircut and beard trim for 100,000 Dong - that's about £3.30. Being the only customer I had about five ladies watching every ginger hair get shortened.

Overnight train to Hanoi
At 5pm we stocked up on 2 minute noodles, beers and nibbles. The train tracks were at the same level as the platform so you walk over them without being told off. Long caused a small issue getting our sleeper compartment numbers wrong and ended up two rooms down from some Oz guys who may have possibly never had a bath or wash stinking up the joint. We share our (slightly shabby) compartment with another couple, Anita and Gerry and quickly decide on who gets the top and bottom bunks. Otherwise its a stuffy, noisy, beer-ed up journey before bedtime discovering live chickens just down the carriage and watching fried chickens being served from a trolley girl. There was a rumour of a rat sighting near the grimmest toilets and sink area yet. You'd think the train wouldn't need to use the horn but the driver obviously thought he was still on his moped as every minute we'd hear a blast of the hooter...throughout the whole night.

With the very early wake-up call of 4:45am for the train's arrival we try and sleep at 10pm. The bedsheets have already been used so we sleep with our clothes on and try to avoid breathing in the previous occupant's hair. By the middle of the night, the air-con switches on to freeze setting and any condition of the bed clothing is soon forgotten. The limited sleep we have is a soundtrack to horn blasting and a rocking motion similar to a washing machine at low spin.

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