Craig Tried To Pay For Dinner With Wiener, But They Would Only Accept Dong

An overnight train delivered us from Sapa's cool mountain climate back into Hanoi's heat. When our train arrived at 4 am it was already 30 degrees in Hanoi. Two hours later we boarded another train and headed south to Nihn Binh ("Ning Bing"), where we found a tiny restaurant that served excellent goat (sorry Brad) and beef.

Here we did a boat trip through the Trang An caves. We were rowed down a 3 km river winding through 15 limestone caves. We can across a Vietnamese movie being shot at a temple along the river's edge, complete with warriors, ninjas, and lots of swords. Unfortunately white extras did not fit into the script, but they were doing some production stills that Craig snuck into. We also went to Mua Cave, which has a look-out at the top of 500 stone steps over rice paddies, rivers, and limestone karsts. It was absolutely beautiful, but the 500 steps at noon in 40 degree heat was craziness.

Next up was another 12-hour overnight sleeper bus ride to Hue ("Hway"). This was the night of the World Cup final between Holland and Spain, so our bus stopped at 2 am to watch most of the game on a tiny TV at a roadside stall. Craig was the only backpacker who got off the bus to watch the game with a bunch of locals. When they asked him where he was from and he replied "Canada", they weren't very impressed, since "your country didn't even make it to the World Cup."

Hue was a very modern city - it used to be the capital of Vietnam. We walked the wide, shaded streets, enjoying views of the Citadel and drinking freshly squeezed sugar can juice over ice. Mmm.

Five days ago we arrived here, in Hoi An, our favourite city so far in Vietnam. It's a World Heritage City, so many of the buildings downtown are preserved like a fine strawberry jam. The city sits on a river, and at night the lights of the colourful paper lanterns twinkle on the water. The food is delicious (the best yet), the people are friendly, the beer is cold and cheap (20 cents a glass again), and the beach is only a 5 km bike ride away. We've reconnected with people we met in Laos and Hanoi, so it's been nice to have some social nights out. It's been very easy to chill here for a few days. There are almost 200 tailors and cobblers in town and many travellers choose to have custom-made clothes and shoes. We took a pass, since the workmanship can be hit or miss, and our packs are choc-a-bloc with New Zealand and India clothes we never wear!

Tonight we take our last sleeper bus in Vietnam, since the rest of the towns will be (relatively) close together. We'll be arriving tomorrow morning in Nha Trang, the scuba diving capital of Vietnam.

We have been having difficulty finding computers that will let us upload pictures to our blog. Many computer labs here block Facebook, and most are not fast enough to upload more than one or two photos per hour. Gross.