We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the North and feel like we left a little piece of us behind…perhaps a little piece of our behinds behind at least after the final northern Pho liquidising all of James’ internals in the hours before boarding our first flight to Hué.

Hué is the former capital of Vietnam, the home to the last imperial family and what remains of the Citadel that was heavily bombed over two wars with the West. We only had one night in Hué, but we loved touring the Citadel, Pho-bidden city (see addendum) and ventured out to see the Pagoda after our first Asian Uber drive!

We didn’t realise at the time, but apparently there was only one Uber driver in Hué and trying to find someone to get us back turned out to be a little tricky. Luckily by now we were expert barterers so when approached by the many boat operators who could have taken us on a leisurely ride back to our hotel, we knew what to do (knowing that an Uber would be about 60,000…but not yet knowing we wouldn’t be able to get one). The lady approached and offered us a ride for 200,000 each!! This is where calm heads really kick in. As a reaction to this exorbitant opening bid (just over $10 per person…) we yelled back, “ok…how about ZERO…take that!!”, panicked and walked away. The price came some way down to maybe 100,000 per person but by this stage we were committed and had already started our fruitless attempts at getting an Uber, so we kept walking as a sign of power in all negotiations…7km’s later we made it back to our hotel.

Along the…Hué…James was able to put his know well honed skills to the test. After getting a great price on street beers, 15,000 (about 80c) each at the 2km mark of our other negotiation, the 3km beer people were in for it. Having regularly being paying 20,000, there was to be none of that today. I walked in and DEMANDED beers for 15,000!! To which the lovely man replied, 10,000!!! SOLD!! I’ll take 2! I then handed him 30,000 by accident. He smiled and gave 10,000 back. That’ll learn him.

From Hué we drove to Hoi An, stopping at an incredible lagoon, the Hai Van pass over the mountains (which cars can also use) and explored the marble mountains near Da Nang. Along the way you couldn’t help but notice how utterly horrifying it must have been to fight so much of the war in this jungle and mountain laced terrain and that the bravest thing I’d done here was eat a Pho in a white T-shirt. And that I most certainly wasn’t brave enough to test out the white undies.

It wasn’t great timing, but as we reached the trickiest bit of the drive (which was like the great ocean road, but raised hundreds of metres…and in Vietnam), I think I realised why our driver wasn’t wearing a seatbelt despite the clear and present dangers that faced us. So as we climbed and descended the mountains all I could think about was it better to crash without a seatbelt or with one and wait hopelessly for help that would never arrive…good times. Lucky you can drink beers in the car.

Hoi An was a very different experience for us, throngs of tourists (Chinese, Korean, Japanese) descend on the town at ~5pm every day to see the town lit up with glorious lanterns on the buildings and in the river, to pay small fortunes for items that may well come from their own countries and to ride through the lanterns on a boat. Not for us, as we were still boat shy and besides that mixture of wooden boats and burning lanterns didn’t sit too well…we hadn’t felt that uneasy since getting in our lift in Hué and seeing a pot of burning oil in the corner.

Despite the tourists (we’re well aware that’s what we are), Hoi An was a great place to see a bit of the best and worst that Vietnam has to offer. We did an awesome cooking class, spent a day by our rooftop pool (drinking “water” from the hotel water bottles that were totally not filled with G&T’s made from cheap street hooch to avoid paying poolside prices), drank more “fresh” beer, bought some silk scarves (putting those haggling skills back on show) and generally had an awesome time. However, while on the Japanese bridge (which it looked like they’d returned to claim) someone on a bike actually rode into Lea and bruised her arm in almost the exact place as New Zealand. It was a little bit of a surprise as everywhere in town people seemed to know and love Lea as they came running down the street waving at her, yelling “lady, lady, lady!”…ok…maybe they don’t know her that well.

We called Mum from Hoi An to show her the sights and tell her what the future of Vietnam would be like, which Mum said she’d predicted years ago in a statement that took me back to my childhood. We would always go out for Vietnamese food, Mum would fall in love with the people running the restaurants and eventually tell them to put their prices up, then they would and we’d boycott them for the restaurant down the road.

The highlight of the trip and maybe our lives happened while drinking beer next to the river. One of the street food sales lady people managed to hook onto an American couple and explained how everything she had was home made from scratch, to which the nice young man replied, shocked, “you make….peanuts??“, in a way that you hope he was being cynical, but in another, far more hysterical way, you hope he wasn’t.

Addendum

Due to popular demand the pun moratorium has been lifted, and by popular I mean one nameless person wanted more. I’m not saying who requested it, but I’ll give a cryptic clue (because he likes cryptics). Q: He who passes wind on hidden explosives in Germany. Too cryptic?? A: Mein Vater. Still don’t get it? Let’s just call him…”Dad”.

Anyway, here are some sure to be classics that didn’t make the last post…no pun intended that time.

• Courtesy of “Dad” during his request, I’ve adjusted it slightly: I hear that during the war some were forced into cannibalism. It must have been difficult to tell who was friend or Pho…
• When we were in Hanoi, our tour guide was explaining to us the 3 different meanings of the word Pho and the different accents used to give different pronunciations. I guess it was a lesson in Pho-netics…
• What do you call a fake noodle soup? A faux-Pho?
• How do you ask if you have a faux-Pho? Is this Pho real?? Pho sure?? (NB: This was also adapted from “Dad” request)
• What do you call a noodle soup you’re not allowed to eat? Pho-bidden
• What do you call it when you ate a noodle soup that was phobidden? A Pho-pas
• What’s the name of the soup that’s won best noodle soup 10 years running? Pho-middable.
• What do you call it when you take a selfie with a noodle soup? A Pho-to.
• What do you call an Italian guy eating noodle soup? Pho-nzie…

Ok I think we can all agree that’s enough.