This city is "Hue" cool

Greetings from Hue, Vietnam. That's pronounced "huay" in case you didn't get the title of this post. It's a really laid back little city, esp. in comparison to Hanoi. As much as I like the craziness of Hanoi, it is a nice change. We are staying in the most amazing guesthouse here in Hue. It's a bit out of the city, but it's beautiful. It's literally someone's house and the family that lives here and runs the guesthouse are phenomenal. (For once, I don't feel like I'm being scammed...) Yesterday was perfect. They picked us up from the train station, and upon arrival at the guesthouse, they gave us wet towels and tea. Later, Phil and I, and a friend that we made on the train (Shane from Atlanta, GA) joined us on our little private boat up the river. Hue is not a major attraction based city but the river cruise was nice. We explored a mausoleum area, and the Citadel - also called the Imperial Purple Forbidden City. It's similar to China except that most of it has been bombed to oblivion during the "American" war in Vietnam and it's much more dilapidated and most of it was made of wood. At least there aren't hordes of tourists around. It's just so laid back here. Last night we tried to find a taxi back to our guesthouse. This bicycle rickshaw driver kept asking us to let him take us home. We're like - "the three of us? Are you kidding?" He wasn't kidding. So we piled into one rickshaw - sitting like a totem pole on this thing and the guy biked us all the way back to our guesthouse for a whopping $3 USD. We got lots of stares, and smiles from people passing us on the road. It couldn't have been safe and at one point, he was pushing us... It was crazy but a barrel of laughs. After I'm done posting, I"ll go sit on the balcony and read my new book that I just picked up in Hanoi.

I'd seen fake purses and fake clothes before, but I've never seen fake books. Apparently, you can get a fake photocopied version of the Lonely Planet's Vietnam here. It's rather amusing. I picked up a fake copy of a book called 'The Girl in the Picture." Not sure if you've guys have ever seen the picture of a naked little Vietnamese girl running, burning from a napalm attack. It's quite a horrific picture that conveys the brutality of war. Anyway, it's a book about the girl (Kim Phuc), her family, the photographer, the vietnam war, etc. It's really, really good. Heartwrenching but also informative. It's rather enlightening to read particularly as I travel through Vietnam. i look forward to visiting the Cu Chi tunnels in Saigon at the end of this week.

Going back a few days - we went to Halong Bay for 2 nights, which was beautiful. Just like all the pictures. I sent out a batch of postcards yesterday. P.S. - if anyone wants postcards - you need to email me your mailing address.

We got to kayak in the area a bit. We slept one night on a boat. And we met lots of cool people. It was a bit of a gong show though as they obviously had overbooked the boat. Some people who were suppose to sleep one night on the boat were fed a blatant lie. "sorry, there's a typhoon coming and no boats are going out onto the sea tonight." It was a pretty good lie considering that a typhoon really did blow through a few days before and killed 17 people in Halong Bay apparently including 2 tourists. You'll be all happy to know that I'm alive. But some of the tour group members called his bluff. It was funny though b/c the tour guide continued to give us fabricated excuses for the tour company's gaffs and mistakes. It's all part of what I like to call the 'Asian No' - they never say "NO" to you so they either give you wrong information or some lame ass excuse. It can get tiring... in either case, the beautiful views and the awesome people that we met made it a great experience. I'd highly recommend it to anyone. Just be sure to leave your expectations about the tour company, guide and boat on shore when you leave. ;)

alright, that's it from me for now. My balcony and book awaits.... Btw, it feels like 30 degrees here today.... I'm guessing it's a bit cooler in Vancouver... hahaha..... sorry....