Pregnant Pirate

Hired a boat for the day complete with pregnant crew casting us off. Within seconds the decking of the boat was covered with cards and statues being handed to us for inspection. Rice boats floated past with hand powered dredgers bringing up gravel from the river bottom.

Stopped off at the Tomb of Tu Duc where we climbed aboard some motos (moped taxis) driven by somewhat drunk drivers along the red sandy tracks. Wooden buildings, concentric walled tombs, greying leafless trees, huge king sized bonsai trees (you´d have to see it) ... and yet another place to try on Mandarin costumes.

This time t-shirts had been laid out for us to peruse as we returned to the boat. You could see that she was starting to get upset that we weren´t interested. At Mu Pagoda there were bug hairy stone statues of warriors, stone toitoises and large bells. Behind were some monks chanting and praying amongst a garden of bonsai trees.

The pregnant lady refused to say goodbye to us as we left the boat. Oops!

Starting to get a bit annoyed about Hue. A bit boring and you are constantly hassled by cyclo and moto drivers wanting to take you everywhere. We left. And that´s when it started to get really annoying.

Too cut a long story short, we had payed for a tourist coach to take us through the night accross the border to Savannaket in Loas. What we got was a full minibus with a poisonous little driver that had selective knowledge of English. We got to the Vietnam – Loas border at 10:30pm and then we were told that the border was closed and that we would have to stay the night at an expensive hotel nearby. Ah! A not completely unfamiliar feeling began to drape over us that we had been done. We refused ... and had a sleepless night in the minibus with drunks and motos passing by in the darkness. But at least we would be able to continue in the morning eh!