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.