Sitting on the purfume river in Hue Vietnam

Hello from beautiful Hue, Vietnam!

Things couldn't be going any better in this beautiful, peaceful country. Vietnam is a very beautiful place that is entirely different from the world of Thailand. This country's poverty is a lot more in your face than Thailand and there is alot less of a tourist infrastructure. These things aside the people of this country have really touched me and the laid back kind nature of the people will never be forgotten. Since the last post we spent a few days in a beautiful town called Hoi An. Hoi An came onto the international scene for thousand years now. It was a very important trading point for many asian but as well as european countries. It is also a UNESCO world heritage site and its easy to see why. The town is set along the river on one side where the majority of people are fishermen or merchants of some sort. The other side of town is on the ocean and there are some breathtaking views from the beach. On our first day we arrived exhausted from our 24hr bus ride so we took it pretty easy and did some wandering around town and found a very nice little restaurant with a really cool old vietnamese man that we ended up going back to very often. The next day we took a tour to another UNESCO world heritage site called Myson Holyland. This was an ancient place of worship and the people who maid it were from the same era of Angkor Wat in cambodia. Unfortunatlly though this site was heavily bombed during the vietnamese war by american war planes, and the damage was very apparent. This is just one example of how america attacked peaceful people and places, sites of worship, schools, Buddhist temples, hospitals, so many needless deaths in this horrible war. The Holyland was a very cool place and it was very interesting to see the carvings and brick laying methods of these people. The next day we spent touring around town and checking out some of the local sites. Various museums as well as beautiful houses with history going back hundreds of years, all in all it was my favorite day in vietnam and I would actually say that Hoi An has been my favourite place that I have ever been. A wonderful experiance. We have now made our way to Hue located in central vietnam. It is a fairly large city so there is a lot of hussle bussle but it does have its quiet relaxed side aswell. Today we did a tour of the city and went to the Forbiden purple city, royal gardens, vietnamese kung fu show as well as a couple tombs. Very interesting stuff but it was extreemly hot today 34+ degrees so we were sweating the entire time. The weather in veitnam is alot hotter than in thailand and the humidity is much much higher so it is a very sticky heat. Well i had best be off but I will try to keep you all up to date as we go!

All the best
D