Things they didn't tell you about

Now matter how hard I push the children into putting a bit more effort into their blogs they are basically pants. So here's a few more what we dids.

We hired a dragon boat to take us up the Red River to visit the Thien Mu Temple.

It was actually rather less charming/romantic than it sounds. We were in a dragon painted rustbucket (They pretty much all are, the high humidity and river water plays havoc with both metal and wood.) and trawled our merry way up the the very murky river. Caitlin sat there thoroughly bored with the entire affair and  Cade stared out of the window gleefully pronouncing which of the riverbank houses was doomed to plunge into the rivers manky depths at any minute, charming child.

The temple itself was lovely, with gorgeous, tranquil gardens, the entire effect was spoiled somewhat by vehicles screaming past the front steps, blaring their horns at the foolish tourists (me included) that were daft enough to stand in the road to take pictures of the pagoda. Talk about fair game.

We did visit Hue Museum, only to find that the curse of the museums had struck again, it was closed. The kids did have time for a good rummage around the tanks etc in the gardens. When we left, we nearly lost Cade as he was inside an M41 tank and didn't hear us shouting.....or so he says.

We managed another trip to the swimming pool before we had to pack to leave for Hanoi.

I had to put this picture in, Shorty just looked so cool.

By the way....Hue airport is a very, very, VERY boring place to spend a few hours. I was even thinking fondly of my 18 hour hangout at Bangkok Airport three years ago. At least there you could get decent ice cream, and coffee that won't eat a hole through your stomach lining. The only thing to be greatful for was that their a/c was working - unlike our hotel room for the first two nights.

Well, we have to go for dinner, this will involve braving a pretty hefty thunderstorm (already gotten drowned once today...soooo not looking forward to a repeat performance.)

This'll be our last entries, it's our last day tomorrow and we've got some last minute shopping to do (yes, I know Cade, suck it up!) then I have to squeeze our booty into the cases so we probably won't be doing anything else exciting.

Em

On Friday we saw Trang Tien Bridge, at night it is lit up with lots of different colours.

On Saturday we went on the plane to Hanoi.

On Sunday we went gift shopping.

On Monday we went, guess what, more gift shopping and today we did even more gift shopping.

Cade

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Citadel

It kinda goes like this:

Grandad: 'Hello'

Me: 'Hi  Pops, where are you?'

Grandad: 'In Hanoi, having a beer?' (Note the slightly confused questioning tone.)

Me: 'That's funny, so are we, well at the airport, waiting for you.'

Grandad: (slight pause) 'S..., that's not till next month!'

Me: 'No, very definitely now.'

Which meant Dad was totally unable to give Yen a hard time when we arrived at Hue airport 3 1/2 hours early for our flight to Hanoi because she read the tickets wrong LOL!

Long and Dull

We decided to go to the kingdom of Cham and have a look around. At least, what was left of Cham. First we visited the Cham museum. I took lots of pics, because several of the Hindu gods we were learning about in RE had statues that were still intact.We had a peek in the gift shop, but everything was WAY overpriced.
So we carried on.

Unfortunately, my DSi ran out of power, and this drew attention to how bored I was. Mum told me to have a look at the scenery and this is what I saw:
Tumbledown houses, pigs in cages on wheels(attached to a motorbike),Tumbledown houses,cows, Tumbledown houses, paddy feilds, tumbledown houses, more paddy feilds, tumbledown houses, dogs running on the road, duck farm, tumbledown houses and... A house that was still standing up! Amazing!

When we finally got back we visited a kite shop. I choose a weird dragon thing with a long red tail. We flew our kites in a large feild, with just about every other kid in Hue. I ended up tangled round someone elses kite string, falling in a rabbit hole (curse those Vietnamese rabbits!) and breaking my dress, and rubbing my feet raw with a new pair of sandal-flip flop things. Ouch!

P.S. Thanks very, very much for your comments everybody

Hue

I feel I should point out that we arrived in Hue just a few short days before the start of the Hue Festival, to find the place a hive of activity. Everywhere is festooned with lights, banners, posters and decorations. They are busy turning the Citadel into a massive auditorium with tiers of seats, stages and huge pieces of sound and lighting equipment. All week the town has been swelling with a steady influx of people arriving for the celebrations. They are building the biggest Bia Hoi right on the waterfront (now there's an accident waiting to happen if ever I saw one.)

The weather has been brain fryingly hot and our visit to the Citadel was a short uncomfortable one. The world and his wife were wandering around and there was cabling and piles of timber everywhere. The HSE would have a major meltdown.

The children enjoyed the worlds smallest funfair (all of four rides) but at a wopping 16p a ride, we managed a couple of hours of fun on what amounted to, well, a couple of quid, including the candyfloss.

Our visit to Da Nang was cooler as it had been raining, in fact, it carried on raining, and on, and on. You get the picture?

After dinner we went on a shopping trip and ordered a new frock for Caitlin and then we went to fly the kites the children bought. Great fun was had by all, including our cyclo drivers who joined in to help the kids. There were loads of people flying kites of all shapes and sizes and there were some nasty collisions.

The Citadel

Two days ago we went to the Hue Citadel.

I went through the biggest doorway I have ever seen. I now have a model of the Citadel I can build out of blocks,

The next day we went to a funfair and rode on the rollercoaster.

We went to the Cham Museum in the city of Dong Ha. We had Chinese food for lunch.

Last night we rode all over Hue on a cyclo and bought and flew kites at the Citadel.

Cade

Hue We Are!

On Wednesday we went to the Citadel in Hue. I don't remember too much, it was too flippin' hot and Mum refused to buy us a drink until we left. I know the decorations were beautiful and that it was a rip-off to get in (tourists pay more than Vietnamese.) We only saw about a quarter of it as there was a lot of construction going on and there were people everywhere.

In the afternoon we went to a swimming pool. Thankfully we were the only people there, so no-one interfered with our game of Capture the Elephant, where everyone climbed over, swum under and around a marble elephant, conveniently plonked in the middle of the shallow end of the pool (handy as Ni can't actually swim.)

Caitlin

Sorry for the delay in posting, firstly we've been seriously busy and secondly, the tintaweb has a whole 'now you see me, now you don't'' thing going on.'

To bring you up to speed, we left Dong Ha on Tuesday and drove to Hue, on Wednesday we visited the Citadel and went swimming. Yesterday we went to Da Nang to visit the remains of the Cham kingdom, we also flew kites. Today we took a boat up the river and visited a Buddhist Temple and after lunch it's the onerous task of lounging by the pool and doing some swimming.

Tomorrow we're leaving for Hanoi. - Emma

ps anyone care to take a guess as to how many kilos of king prawns I've eaten since we got here. That's my lunch that is.