Monday 29 December

Last night we had dinner at the house of a descendant of the royal family, a friendly, older guy, who described how his house had been 70% destroyed in the war, but he came back and rebuilt it.  He kept saying "I upped my grandfather's house", which I loved.  The house was restored with lots of fine detail from the tortoise sculptures to the dark wood screens.  We had a delicious meal after we saw the house.

Today we started with a tour of the old Citadel and Forbidden City of Hue.  This was the seat of the Vietnamese government from the mid 1800s until roughly WWII.  A series of rulers all named Nguyen were in power.  This isn't too surprising since over 50% of the people in Vietnam have the last name Nguyen.  The pronunciation of this name is hard to describe as there is no apparent N or G in the beginning.  To me, it sounds like "when".  Anyway, the buildings were much destroyed in the Tet offensive of the Vietnam War (or the "American war", as they call it here), but you still could get a sense of the place.  It reminded me of Beijing, which apparently was its model.  We had a little bit of drizzle but I'm happy to say that other than that, there was no rain today.

After the tour, we had our one long road transfer of the trip to Danang first, for lunch, and then ultimately to Hoi An.  It was interesting to drive along and look out the window ... it's pretty much a continuous stream of small retail shops, and villages seem to run into each other.  Danang seems much more modern, with a few high rise buildings and several factories that we passed.

After lunch, we went to our walk, which was several hours through the rice paddies and the villages.  We watched people working the rice fields.  It was a bit hard to tell what was going on because it is early in the season, and the fields are pretty much just a bunch of mud.  But the locals were wading into the mud and working it with a variety of tools.  Again, many children were happy to greet us.  The weather was perfect - not too hot and not too cold.

Amy and Adam choosing a laundry lady

When we arrived at the hotel, we were told that there was a laundry lady across the street cheaper than the hotel, so we figured we would get laundry done.  We saw her just as we approached in the van, with a big smile and frantic waving.  I checked into the room, then gathered our laundry to take to her.  The minute I exited the hotel, two ladies on the sidewalk waving and smiling, literally jumping up and down to get my attention.  I walked over to them and it took me a minute to realize that they were rivals, one was on the corner, and the other across the street.  They were jumping up and down and saying, in effect, "pick me! pick me!".  I was totally stymied - who do I pick?  Finally, I just pointed to one, and said "You!". The other lady smiled and shrugged, and walked away, and the chosen one happily took my hand to walk me to her stall in front of her house, where she assured me that I would have great results.  I left her with several days of laundry and for less than $15, I am to pick it up tomorrow.

-- Donna

PS: You can click on any of our photos to get a larger version.