Hue

A 14-hour long, uncomfortable sleeper bus ride south (and boy do I mean long) stood between Hanoi and Hue. The journey was made all the longer after they turned off the lights after an hour, so I couldn't read. All I could do was watch Titanic, which they were kindly playing for us....but with the sound too low to hear, and subtitles in Vietnamese. Helpful.
I eventually arrived to find a group of taxi drivers, hotel sellers and ladies selling all kind of crap - it was like
Being greeted by the paparazzi, they're like vultures, not even letting me get my bag off the bus before telling they're place was the cheapest, the best, blah blah blah. Eventually I got a taxi bike to the hostel...which was fun, having my big bag on the back too, feeling like I was gonna fall off at every turn...as well as clothesline every rider coming the other way.
The hostel was nice enough, a lot smaller and simplistic compared to the one in Hanoi, but was still nice. I actually arrived at the same time as my friends from Hanoi, which was nice (I feel like I'm writing a Year 8 English story, everything's nice).
I went for a quick wander round the bit of Hue I was staying in - soon realised that it was a world away from Hanoi - for a start, the roads could accommodate at least 1 car and a person at the same time. It was a lot quieter than Hanoi as well, not nearly as crowded or people goading you into buying crap you don't need (this is obviously not including the people at the market...who knew being White made you seem important....). Hue is actually quite a pretty City, lots of green, and the riverside flanked by parks with statues and other things.
I then went back to the Hostel for a bit of a chill, and met a guy from Leeds in my room (Ottley, actually, but as you travellers know, so many people here don't know where you live, you just say the closest big city to you...for most Englishmen, it's London(being the only city anyone knows)).
He tagged along to to me and the Patchwegians, adding a fourth wheel, making me feel slightly better about the situation.
We went and grabbed some food, then went for a few drinks somewhere offering a free bucket and free pool. The beers flowed. We made our way back to the hostel for Happy Hour, and made our way through the 16 Vodka shots above the bar (Nb. During the day, we noticed that they were all different flavours...and not conventional ones, so made a pact to get through them all).
In a game of chance, each of us had 2 shots. My 2 were Fishermans Friend (actually very nice) and Garlic (not so nice, almost as bad as Snake Blood...) Stevie had Arse flavour (fish, though some American's belief it must be fart flavoured is much funnier, especially when accompanied with his mine of funnelling it into the vodka). Among the other flavours, Jon had Chilli. We thought this was gonna be fine, having had chilli shots at home...but not like this. This was vodka fused with about 50 chillis...hot chillis, even for the locals. So few people drank it, it sat on the shelf stewing, getting stronger an Stronger. After the initial taste of vodka, and the brag of how easy it was, Jon was in the toilets 5 seconds later. I was in stitches. We all were. We ended up getting 4 others to have it too, just to add to the hilarity. There mouths we're numb for hours.
We moved to a bar, Brown Eyes, which boasted that they stayed open 'until the last one passes out'. It didn't take long to realise that was an accurate statement. After ordering a round of beers, we were then bombarded with free nibbles and shots - proper shots, sambuca - and then presented with a flaming Sambuca Tower, prepared on our table before us. There was free pool, music, and lots of locals. We had a blast. So much so, we went back the next night!

I'll give a little break in the text for day 2...that enough?

The next day, the 4 of us took a Cuty tour of Hue, taking in an incense factory (more like a stall on the roadside, apparently the campaigners for workers rights hasn't got to the incense industry yet) 3 temples (they were all amazing, but writing about all 3 would take forever, so you can just look at photos on Facebook later) a martial arts show, the Citadel (which whilst interesting, was a slight disappointment, as all the main buildings short of the Gatehouse had been destroyed and yet to be rebuilt, though planned for within 15 years, when it will be spectacular) and a Buddhist Pagoda, which was pretty awesome and has the car that the guy drove to the protest when he burned himself alive (it's on the front of one of the Rage Against The Machine Albums, it's in the picture! It's famous! Go check it out!)...oh yea, and a boring 30 minute dragon boat down the river, which was slow, noisy and offered, souvenirs from Venezia! The tour was awesome, I got to see some awesome sights, and it was nice to see something and know what it was and why, as opposed to touring on your own and going 'Ooh that's nice, wonder what that is'. One funny thing on the tour was that one of the temples was by a Banana plantation, and with loads of people trying to sell bananas (made a change from coke and water). The way they sold though was different. One woman held (in a very bad way) her disabled son as she tried to sell. The rest of them, mostly children, attempted to sell by using clearly the only line of English they knew, in a chant that was quite unnerving (but kind of funny) - 'Mister Madame you buy Bananaaaaa?'. There was also one little boy, about 3, who the tour guide was toying with (much to our amusement), as he was trying to sell in the watchful eye of his mother. After the tour guide asked the price, the optimistic little boy asked for $5! He was so cute, the tour guide gave him 10,000 Dong - 30p.

As I said that night we went back to Brown Eyes, but not after meeting up with more friends from Hanoi and a lovely Aussie guy. Being more of us, we had even more fun that night...meaning my head hurt a lot more the next day.

The next day, it was just me and Mile left, and we went for another wander, to the market. It was huge, and really quite fascinating with some of the stuff they were selling. The hustle and bustle of a proper market was awesome, something I'd been looking for. Anyway we kind of used that day as an admin day, I blogged and read and sorted stuff for Hoi An. After trying some local food, we headed back for an early night...but not in that way...2 heavy nights had taken their toll!