On The Buses

With only 30-day Vietnam visas and so much to fit in, we headed up-country pretty quickly after Ho Chi Minh City.

Here's a round-up of each place we stayed before we hit the highlights of Phong Nha and Hanoi.

Click the links to see the albums - probably more interesting than my slapdash prose:

Mui Ne (no pictures, it really was pretty dull)

A long, slightly mucky strand of beach with hotels and guesthouses running behind.

Mui Ne wasn't that bad really. A good place to regroup while we relaxed at the Duc Thao guesthouse, with a couple of nice Aussies and a young German who thought Putin was the answer to the world's problems.

Highlight: Rum at three quid a bottle.

Da Lat

Good times in Dalat where we took an Easy Rider bike ride out of town to visit flower nurseries, a silk factory, weasel coffee farm (not great, for obvious reasons), a waterfall full of end-of-term schoolkids,

We had a lovely hot pot lunch with the lads, knocking Betty Turpin's efforts into a cocked hat, and visited Chicken Village, home of a giant cement chicken, the mythology of which was lost in the long-winded translation offered us.

Something about a beautiful but poor girl, a young warrior, love, dowry, unhappy father-in-law, blah blah. Good chicken though, and the weather was perfect and countryside breathtaking.

The evening was spent at the Escape Bar, where we watched Reyman Robles' great little Vietnamese three-piece band working through some blues and classic covers.

Highlights: All of it.

More Jack Nicholson than Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper

Evidently chicken town

Meet the band

Nha Trang

A very wet, grey, very Russian, poor man's Morecambe, which may have brightened up with the weather, as the beach was quite nice, but as it was it peed down for the 24 hours we were there.

I suffered a cracking migraine and saw my dinner again, Kim had a massage, and our beautiful receptionist Snow said we were the loveliest old couple she had ever met. So, bit of a curate's egg all told.

Highlights: Lovely grub at Yen's restaurant, with violin and guitar dinner accompaniment. A large, pink Soviet style ice cream-cum-lotus flower space rocket structure on the sea front. The bus out of town.

Hoi An

We loved Hoi An. Quaint, with its Chinese influences, the small streets holding many treasures: shops, restaurants, cafes, temples, a fantastic central market and loads of quirky sights in sidestreets and back alleys.

We rendezvoused with Neil, a friend of Iain Stewart's, who is living in Hoi An and running the Zoom Bar and Vintage Vespa Adventures, a cool enterprise offering day trips out of town to see the surrounding countryside. Later on, we had a great night out with Neil and his missus, Caroline, who writes travel journalism. What a life, eh!

Kim and Bianca had suits made for work while were here, so we certainly mixed business with pleasure(!).

The downside of our stay was being beaten by the m*ckems, though we were in the company of some Geordies, and consoled each other with a drink and some home comfort.

Highlight: Riding a scooter out to the Marble Mountains to see the Buddhas carved into the caves. Last time I was in the saddle was a millisecond before being propelled into the oncoming carriageway of the City Highway in London after hitting a non-indicating cabbie in 1998. I was a bit tentative, but had a great day once we hit the open road.

The Modfather of Hoi An

Suits you, Kim

Marble Mountain Buddha

Hue

A rainy coupla days in Hue, where we explored the old citadel, home of the last emperors before the French started running the show, and took a bus trip out to see some temples and mausoleums where the old fellas ended up.

Fascinating stuff, and some inspiring architecture in the most tranquil settings.

Highlight: Being photographed with Santa.

Stop making scents

Next up, Phong Nha, caves and Christmas...