23/02: Hue country side tombs & ruines (+20; 3605km)

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We took our bikes and did a tour around Hue to see some Pagodas with the sun shining on our faces again. Yup, today the sun was back so we could leave the jackets home. It even got a bit hot at some times ;-) So while pedalling through some back roads around Hue country side we got to see an old Elephant/Tiger arena, some important guys tombs ( & the tombs of there wifes), farmland & animals. We stopped to pet some local 'street'cows that at a certain moment licked Line in the armpit. So it seems cows have a really rough & reeeeeeaaaally wet tongue :-)



After that we strolled the main Hue market where everybody tries to sell you...well anything actually. The most popular call-outs are probably "You, You, hey You!" or "LookieLookie, you buy!" After 20min of this you get the impression that their understanding of our welth is that we just want to buy everything & anything all the time (totally regardless wether you need something or not, you can buy, so you buy...right?) ;-) But we don't need anything, plus we can't drag anything on our bikes so we just got some drinks, a snack, some more viet coffee & book reading.

22/02: Hue old city 'Citadel(+-in citadel-in citadel)' visit (+21; 3585km)

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Visiting Hue old city centre by bike really is a great (& fast) way to get a good feel of the place. The citadel area of Hue is basically a part of town inside some really big walls from some old emperor fort. About 9 bridges & gates (1 car wide only) to get in & out and most are 1-way only...didn't always keep to these rules on the bike, most bikes/cyclo's didn't seem to care either.

Inside the citadel is...another citadel (imperial city) with emperor buildings...stuf...& imagine...another citadel inside the citadel inside the citadel! This last one is the Purple City which previously only had concubins, the emperor & balless dudes. Wow, party time. All by all it's a nice place (quite) to walk around, take some pictures & gaze at the buildings. After the 'cultural' part of the visit, some strolling through backstreets. Tasty streetfood lunch (minced beef noodle soup with hardboiled bird eggs) for the remarkable low price of 5000d/plate :-o It is one of the few times we got the 'real' price, not the 'white-guy' price (which is somewhere between 2x to 10x the real price) & the more funny cause some other viet customer eating there was telling the noodle lady she should have charged us 20.000 for the food. Real price for a white guy?? That's just wrong! ;-)

Tomorrow we head out to the outskirts of Hue to see some pagodes etc along the perfume river. Different, but same-same.

21/02: Shazam! Hai Van Pass (+2 smaller one's) for breakfast & spearing on to Hue (+106; 3564km)

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Today we went from Danang to Hue. Original plan was to stop after the Hai Van Pass in Lang Co, but we already arrived there at 10.30am...so decided to pedal on to Hue already. The Hai Van Pass put only a small dent in our legs, as it was actually less hard than we expected. Peaking at 500m after about 6km of 6-8% uphill we got some beautiful sceneries, including a bay with a cute village on the foot of the mountain (apparently an isolated lepra colony ;-)). The further we went up, the more we were biking in the clouds. Our reward was a welcome by a cute dog & some annoying ***-sellers (who quickly spotted we didn't need anything so left us alone). Ardan is seriously thinking of having a dog when we get our place in Veltem...., we'll see :) but why not if we get all sorts of other farmlife?

Once we've crossed the top, we had to put on our raincoats. It was much colder on the other side and it started to rain a little bit too. The weather has changed a lot as we move more north. The trivial events of the day got spiced up by a snackstop 20 km from Hue at a little bakery where a guy came up to Line pointing at her jacket and pointing back at him, basically asking if he could have it. Her wolfskin jacket??? No way! Immediately clinched the jacket in 1 hand while snacking, but you can't blame the guy for trying, at least he tried by asking nicely :) The girls at the bakery counter laughed and shook their heads...They thought the guy was a bit strange too.

Arrived in Hue around 2.30pm and went looking for a hotel. Didn't do much today except taking a well deserved shower, resting and having a good dinner. We'll probably stay in Hue for the next two days and wander around.

20/02: Hot stuff & the first rain in a long time (+31; 3458km)

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Before lunch Ardan got the final fittings on the suits. One last fix on one suit later they were looking sharp & ready to be packed by the moto post officer (they drive to the tailor in Hoi An, no need to even make it to the post office). Package will now be underway for about 3 to 4 months by boat. Should arrive fine...lets hope so...fingers crossed. Anyway, just judge the looks yourselve. A casual grey & classic black. What more does a man need in his warderobe?



After that it was time to get back on the bike towards Da Nang. Already forgot how much wind there is this time of year around here. It seems to stay the same all the way to Dang Ha before we start heading west towards Laos. Also lots! colder than the part we biked before in the south. And we heard once after the Hai Van Pass (hard work tomorrow) it gets even a lot colder & more rainy. Today we also got a taste of light rain again, something we didn't get since Singapore.

On the way from Hoi An to Da Nang we passed the Marble Mountain Temple. A tall temple clinched on the edge of a rock formation rising steeply out of the ground. Quick tour of Da Nang downtown later we had spotted the cathedral (with a very busy evening mass), the main "disco" bridge (like a huge Xmas tree at dark) & the stone art decorated quay. We'll see a bit more of Da Nang when biking towards the Hai Van pass (from where you can take beautiful fictures of the scenery apparently).

19/02: Hoi An really is all about tailoring

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Owkey, today was all about the 'Hoi An' experience. Walking around from shop to shop looking & fitting some dresses for Line...soooo many shops, soooo many models (although most have the same dresses on show, a lot off them must be using the same tailors also).
By mid-day Line had found 3 dresses around town that were being tailored to her body so we kept on going back & forth to these shops to get them just right. All of them were perfect at the 2nd fitting. And does she look good with them :-) It's gonna be a 3-4 month wait before we get them back, that's the time it will take seamail to get from Vietnam to Belgium apparantelly...can't really judge wether that's slow or fast (well surely not 'fast' ;-)) Good thing we are just getting home in 2 months...only 1 month more of real waiting. Another fitting of the suits for Ardan & these should be finished by tomorrow morning. Let's hope they get it all right so we can get back on the bikes in the afternoon towards Da Nang. Back to the real Vietnam, Hoi is nice, but this town is a bit odd since it seems to only have tailors?? No food shops, hardware -, fish -,...making it a bit of a surreal place to stick around.