Lukey and Louisey's Round-The-World Adventure

Greetings from Nam!

We are here in the Citadel City of Hue in VietNam and so far, so fabulous! We arrived in Vieters on New Years Eve, but not without mishap. Our flight to Manila was delayed by two and a half hours causing panic attacks from yours truly. Lucky for us Philippine Airlines kindly transfered us to another airline to arrive in Manila half an hour earlier! We were transfered to Cebu Pacific, a small domestic airlines service... and as a nervous traveller already I was saying my hail marys in between my good-bye tears. Of course we made it and the flight wasn't that bad. They even had games where you could win T-shirts!

Anywho, after another round of checking in, we boarded our Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong. By this stage Luke was not looking good. After waking up with a very high fever I came to the conclusion he had Bird Flu. Then we realised they were just side effects from the malaria tablets. By the time we actually made it to VietNam we were both thoroughly exhausted. Three flights in one day, no matter how short the flights are, are still three flights in one day, and thus very draining. Spirits were lifted, however, when we saw our kick-arse five star (five of course. Like you would stay in anything less than four. Kidding. No really, I am.) hotel. Hot showers and everything! Unfortunately for us we didn't make it to New Year. We made it for the Australian New Year and the Filipino New Year, but fell asleep 20 minutes before VietNam's New Year. I woke up at 12:24am with a start and that sinking feeling you get when you miss New Year. Shamefully hilarious.

The taxi ride to the hotel was interesting too. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, was riding a motor cycle or bicycle of some sort. It was crazy! And I thought Filipino driving was chaotic. Here you not only have to look out for crazy, beeping drivers, but swerving cyclists as well. It's great! Saigon itself was a bit scary for me. I know I am going to sound like a naive, unworldly person here, but wow it was hard to find people who could speak English. (even Engrish would have been great.) For example our tragic experince at the train station. Wow. I won't go into detail, but I will tell you this. It took us a good 40 minutes before we found someone who could sell us the tickets we wanted, Luke then had to go back and change them to the ones we actually wanted (as we apparently didn't get the ones we wanted originally) then both Luke and I got publically abused by some strange woman at the platform door (I think we weren't supposed to wait on the platform, but we are stupid foreigners, I don't understand why she was so surprised). The train ride itself was pretty great. We had a four bed soft-sleeper to ourselves. Just the three of us. Luke, myself and the mouse. Yeah. Mouse. We won't go there.

It was morning by the time we got here to Hue. I am so happy we are here though. The first hotel we were hoping to stay at had been torn down so we were directed to the Thai Binh Hotel. At this point, the best decision we have made so far. The room is pretty fantastic for $US20 a night and we have been able to organise tours and transport for future endevours as well. Much to our delight. Go us! We've just had a full-on nine course (really. NINE. Yeah they were small courses, but there was still nine of them.) meal and I think I need to lie down. Then drag Luke to some sort of market or shopping area... Hahaha. Yes, that sounds like a good idea. ;)

I'm not sure when I'll be able to put some pics up, but we are going on a city tour tomorrow so I'll probably have better ones tomorrow anyway.

posted by Louise and Luke @ 5:57 PM