Good Morning Vietnam!

Hey folks,

We've made some moves since our last update from Savannakhet. We caught the bus and managed to smoothly cross borders into Vietnam. We arrived through Lao Bao and then on to Dong ha and from there made our way by bus to Hue. We lucked out too, getting the last two seats on the bus although all the bus seats were actually taken. Uriah sat on a tiny red plastic chair in the aisle and Derek sat shotgun right next to the driver. Great view as we were introduced to the chaotic traffic that engulfs Vietnam.



Hue is positioned in central Vietnam and is known as one of the cultural capitals.. Coming from Lao, it was a nice transition as Vietnam feels much wealthier and less remote then much of Lao and it was nice to welcome back some comforts and conveniences (like an ATM!). Hue has a lot of old historical stuff including a citadel that is one of the city's main attractions. The French colonial influence is very apparent here. Overall, Hue was a good intro to Vietnam - It's not too big. The guides saw great things about it but we thought it was good but not necessarily great. Not too many things to do. From Hue we did a tour of the de-militarized zone (DMZ) which at one point in history divided Vietnam in two (north and south).



The tour had its moments but it left us feeling like we would never want to do another tour ever again (any tour..EVER). Most of the 11 hour day was spent on the bus travelling from highlight to highlight. Most of the highlights were nothing special either. Really, the only reason we went was that it was the cheapest and easiest way to get out and see the Vinh Moc tunnel system which turned out to be really cool. We spent about an hour underground roaming through the tunnels, some of which are 23 metres underground. The passage ways get a little tight at times and it's obvious they were built for Vietnamese-sized bodies and not big clunky westerners (like Derek).



Immediately after the DMZ tour, we made arrangements to take a bus straight to Hanoi in northern Vietnam. In hindsight, this probably wasn't the greatest plan as the last thing we wanted to do after spending most of the day in a bus was to get on another bus and travel for 13 hours through the night. We were dropped off at some restaurant which was to serve as our pickup point for the next bus... Our bus was late and we ended up spending 4 hours at this place. It was a REALLY long day and a really long night. The bus ride was horrifying at times as the bus driver was gunning it all the way, passing and honking anyone in his path... The road was also pitch black and it was bucketing rain most of the way. Not really the type of ride you can sleep through!

Anyway, we're in Hanoi now and we'll update you on that soon enough.

- Uriah and Derek