Time to go home

The marathon starts. We leave Hanoi at 10am local time and 40 hours of non-stop travel later we should be home.
The first leg has gone fine and we are now sitting in Changi Airport awaiting our midnight flight to Heathrow. Changi is huge and one of the better places to while away a few hours, expensive though, especially coming after Vietnam.
The A380 to Heathrow is big and well-appointed but an aeroplane is never going to be a good place to spend the night. The scheduled flight time is 14 hours 20 minutes although the lady beside us, who does the trip frequently, informs us that they always land early and so it proves. However the air bridge malfunctions and we have to wait a while before disembarking.
We are still out of Heathrow and riding the Piccadilly line before 06:30, Eurostar next and we reach Paris in good time for lunch. Paris is warm and sunny and it could be Spring as we eat and drink and watch the world flow by (and isn't the traffic well-behaved!).
By now we are out on our feet and seriously consider setting the alarm clock in case we end up in Brive or Toulouse!
At Limoges we are met by Alan and driven back to their place for a delicious meal. Finally we are home and it's all over.
We are probably too tired to appreciate the holiday properly but it has been a great trip and, maybe, the first of many, Kerstin is already spinning the globe deciding where to go next.
It just remains to thank all of our friends and relatives for their generosity with their time and money which has allowed all of this to happen, even if we are 5 years late in the doing of it!

Back in Hanoi for one last night

We are up for breakfast as our boat makes its way back to Halong City and then it's another long drive back to Hanoi. Huy making phone calls to a friend trying to fit us in to a water puppet show. He can get us tickets for the 14:15 performance which means we can get to see the old prison first. Originally built by the French as the main prison for northern Vietnam, it had a reincarnation as the 'Hanoi Hilton' housing US POWs, including John McCain. Only a small portion remains but it does house a gruesome guillotine. The water puppet theatre is up next, beautifully sung and played but less than subtle puppetry.
We've had no lunch today so our final group dinner is early. We are going to KOTO (know one teach one), a project set up by an Australian Vietnamese to help young people learn a trade. The food and service was quite superb, possibly the best meal we've had in Vietnam.

Halong Bay

The weather has definitely turned cooler. Matt, who so far has been in vests and shorts was searching for something warmer to wear when we arrived at the port in Halong Bay today. Having finally found something that fitted his rather large frame Nicky promptly nicked it as she was cold and couldn't find anything small enough to fit her!

We are taken by a small gig (life vests dutifully donned) out to our junk, where we have a delicious lunch as soon as we board. The boat is ours exclusively, we all have lovely cabins. The mist refuses to lift, so the rocks in the bay take on an eerie but quite atmospheric shape. In the afternoon, we again get into the gig and are taken to some limestone caves, where we wander through enormous stalactite formations with several hundred other tourist who seem to have arrived at the same time as us. The only creatures still living on these rocks are a breed of monkeys. Some of our group managed to glimpse a couple of them, but we missed them.

Later in the afternoon, half the group went kayaking in the bay, Mike would probably have wanted to join them, but he has a humdinger of a cold and it was drizzling with rain, so decided to give it a miss.

After that it was time for dinner. Several delicious dishes were put on the tables and we even had a demonstration of how they make their beautiful decorations out of fruits and vegetables.The junk had dropped anchor for the night as had several others and the twinkling lights in the bay was a pretty backdrop to our evening on board.

Hanoi by plane

A lunchtime flight to Hanoi means that this is a bit of a quiet day. It's getting cooler now, even in Hué and by the time we get to Hanoi the shorts have all but disappeared; it's only Matt who is kitted out for the beach in t-shirt and shorts wherever we are. Hué airport is tiny and Hanoi airport not a lot bigger. The inevitable minibus whisks us into town. Our room in the Star View Hotel is our biggest yet, it even contains a 3-piece suite. As we missed lunch, we are booked in for an early dinner - a set menu of 10 courses for 150,000 dong (5€), delicious. Huy leaves us to nip back home for some of his mum's cooking, he looks very smart kitted out in his new suit. We'll see him tomorrow after breakfast for the trip to Halong Bay.
The rest of us take taxis down to the old town where we wander around for a bit. Kerstin finds her first decent cup of coffee in Vietnam and then it's back to the hotel for an early night.

Motorcycle trip

Twelve motor bikes and twelve drivers were waiting for us as we got outside the hotel this morning. It was drizzling with rain and rather cold, our first cool day since arriving in Asia.
Also outside was a troupe of performance artists doing a traditional mythical creature dance to celebrate the new year.

The drivers strapped a helmet on each of us and with all drivers and passengers shouting something that sounded like '1-2-3-RIa!! off we went!
Huy had told us that New Year's Day was the only day we would experience no traffic in Vietnam - not so, everyone seemed to be out, and we soon headed out in convoy to the countryside like hundreds of other bikers.

Some of the route took us through back streets, some on major roads, weaving in and out between cars and other bikers and pedestrians. Some of the tracks we went through were cross country and the tracks got more and more narrow. I felt fairly safe with my driver, he seemed content to stay in his allocated place in the convoy, not so Mike's driver, who seemed to be in competition with the others and if he lost his place in the convoy would race to get back in line in case someone would try to overtake him. Add to that, he seemed to only have one good eye as the other one was a bit Marty Feldman like.

Our first stop was at a village where we saw the only other covered bridge in Vietnam, the first one being the one in Hoi An. There was also a rice museum, which displayed the tools used for sowing and harvesting the rice and the methods that still are the same today.

Our second stop was at the home of a woman who only has one arm and makes cone hats. We took our shoes off as is the custom when you are invited inside and were given tea and sweets, whilst she showed us how she makes the hats. Mike bought one and will probably have to wear it from now on as it is not going to fit in the rucksack....

Back on the bikes for our next stop which was for a photo opportunity at the Perfume River and a group photo of us all with our drivers.

We also saw a king's tomb and an arena used until 1904 for ritualised fights between elephants and tigers, but with only one clawless tiger to five elephants these were rigged to make sure that the elephants who represented royalty would always win.

Lunch was at a pagoda where the nuns had prepared a typical banquet lunch for the weary bikers. Some nuns were a bit concerned that we weren't eating enough and 'helped' to pile up the food in our bowls and plates with instructions on how to eat it. A slow process for me as only chop sticks were provided.

A ride in a dragon boat took us to the Thien Mu Pagoda, the 'pagoda of the celestial lady'. Legend tells us a king would come to build a tower here in gratitude to a lady he had met and is the oldest pagoda in Hué. The site also houses a massive bronze bell, said to be audible for 10 km away when struck. There is also to be seen the biggest marble turtle in Vietnam.

With traffic continuing to be heavy through the city, our drivers got us all back in one piece to the hotel. Everyone agreed it had been great fun.

A New Year - Vietnamese style

The evening gets off to a slow start - the special Tet party we've been invited to turns out to be some complimentary plates of unappealing nibbles in the bar, drinks are charged as normal. Huy's plan of being able to eat enough at the 'party' to last the evening goes out the window. Instead after a quick round of Jenga, we're off to the Octopussy bar for drinks and dinner. On the way there we pass the offerings to the spirits set out outside each house, even the cyclo gets its own special display. Little bonfires outside houses burn money and clothes and other things to honour ancestors and bring good fortune in the year ahead.
The drinks at the Octopussy were okay but the food was probably the worst we've had in Vietnam so far. It's Sarah's birthday today and Huy has arranged a surprise cake for her at our next stop - Brown Eyes 'Open from 5 until the last one passes out'. It's crowded. The pair of us going in added 2 to the numbers but probably doubled the combined age. We are all given free shots as we arrive to get us in the party mood. The music is good too, most of it older than the kids who are dancing to it. The cake arrives accompanied by sparklers and a complicated tower of glasses which is set ablaze. The cake is eaten (and it's nice, too) and the party begins.
When midnight approaches we go out in the street and watch the top half of the firework display downtown, which is all we can see over the rooftops, then it's bedtime for geriatrics and we're back to the hotel. Tomorrow it's motorbike time.
Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

Over the mountains to Hué

A leisurely bus ride took us from Hoi An to Hué. The area just south of Da Nang is famous for its stone carvers - the best in Vietnam, apparently, and our first stop was at a big retail outlet to admire (and purchase) their work. However, impressive as the statues and other stone carvings were, it would have been more interesting to have been able to see the carvers themselves at work.
A little further along the road another short stop at My Khe beach for a photo opportunity - the gigantic Buddah figure which could be seen across the bay.
Next we headed up into the mountains and over the very scenic Hai Van Pass with its remains of an old French fort and US concrete pillboxes at the top.
Arriving at Hué we check into the pretty chic Gold and immediately hop back onto the bus for lunch in town. Because it's New Years Eve any staff working are now on double time and the meal prices were adjusted up by 20%, still cheap and delicious too.
After lunch it's back on the bus for a drive through town to the citadel built for Emperor Gia Long and his Nguyen Dynasty (no relation to Huy Nguyen, our tour guide, apparently). Within the citadel's outer wall lies the Imperial City and the Forbidden Purple City. Having suffered enormous war damage, the citadel is gradually being restored and rebuilt. Damaged as it is it is still an awesome sight, pre-1968 it must have been amazing. Sadly the camera battery died as we were starting the tour, so few photos.
Tonight we are invited to a Tet party at the hotel and then at 10pm we are off out to experience a Vietnamese New Year. Chuc Mung Nam Moi.