Hue, Hoi Ann and the Russian.

Arrived in Hue in the pissing rain and set about meeting up with my Russian friend Ulgar, Ilse and her son Fabian at the backpackers hostel. This was my first encounter with the backpacker chain of hostels and apparently they’re pretty big in the travelling world. It was kind of like walkabout with beds upstairs, very trendy aussie style and lots of western food/drink available. Ulgar, bless her, was still feeling a bit ill (cold) so she just chilled with upstairs while I headed to the hostel bar to make some new friends. I bumped into Ramco and Eric, two ducth guys I was hanging around with in Goa 2 months prior who were also staying there and we cought up on some war stories and had a few beers.

The next day Ulgar, the family unit and I went for a wonder to see what Hue had to offer. The weather was still crap so it wasn’t as impressive as it might have been but was still a pretty cool city. Hue used to be the capital of Vietnam until the war and it has lots of war based history museums to appease the culture junkies. The highlight of the day was defo the KFC I indulged in. Had a pretty chilled night in playing card games and flirting with Ulgar then we headed to bed as we had a bus early doors the next day.

The next day me and the Russian headed to Hoi Ann to spend a couple of days. I didn’t really know much about the place before going but the LP recommended it as one of the best things to do in ‘nam and rightly so. It’s kind of like Bruges only a lot cheaper and with more backpackers. It’s absolutely gorgous, a really quant and romantic place, unfortunately Ulgar was STILL feeling a bit ill so spent most of the day in bed. To be fair I wasn’t complaining as we both spent most of the time in bed ;-). In the evening the hotel we were staying at had free cocktails between 6:30 and 7:30 so I smashed 5 of those and got chatting to two Canadian chicks and a French guy. Then the four of us went to a bar to play some pool before I headed back to bed to bring ulgar her diner (I was playing doctor!)

The next day Ulgar cought a bus back to Hanoi as she was heading to Thailand so I went for a wonder around the city to soak in the atmosphere and then spent a few hours updating my blog back at the hotel. Then in the evening I went back for the free cocktails, meet with the Canadians again and this Irish guy and his German travel GF. The five of us wondered up to Café 43 for 3000 dong (10p) beers and to book a cooking course for the next day. Needless to say at 10p a beer we drank a bucket load of beers and staggered back to the hotel.

The next day…..I can’t think of any other way to start these paragraphs….. the following day…. Nah that’s too similar…… why is this so difficult to come up with another way to start a paragraph….. errr….. fuck it, the next day I went off to the cooking course and met up with the Canadian girls there. The three of us joined forces with a new Zealand couple who were making slight different food so we figured we would all make something different and share out the food and recipes. The course itself cost $5 then you had to pay for whatever meal you ate (bargain!). Between us we cooked stuffed squid (amazing), chicken curry, chicken with fried veg and cashew nuts and about 4000 spring rolls! After the cooking course I wonderd around the town some more trying to get a traditional Chinese outfit made for tigger and eventually found a place that already had a baby sized outfit that they cut down to fit him for $5 all in J