We flew from Hanoi into Da Nang in order to go on to Hue where we were to spend New Year's Eve.  Hue is located in Central Vietnam and is the old royal city.    At the hotel we had to leave our passports with the front desk as the police inspects all passports in order to be aware of those entering and leaving the city.  We went to the Citadel, the court of the Nguyen dynasty, which ruled from 1802-1945.  It was dark and very rainy but we managed to walk around and waited out rainshowers in doorways.

Our guide pointed out that Hamburger Hill is located not to far from Hue and Central Vietnam saw most of the fighting being caught in the civil war.   Da Nang was listed in the books as being a pit in the guidebooks and only stop of that Champa Museum (Central Vietnam was the location of Indian settlements and many of those treasures were moved to this museum).

We checked into the hotel and I decided to sleep while Robert went on to the Tomb of Tu Duc where he saw a goose that was all alone, calling out and following them along the path. 

New Year's Eve in Hue consisted of dinner out at a place that Robert had looked up in his Lonely Planet Guide to Food in Vietnam.  After some false starts across the Perfume River, we located the place, which made excellent crepes and were happy victims to children selling prints and cards.  We were also visited by a gentleman named Mr. Coin who sold us some of the 'treasure' from the Citadel.  A parade of dragons went down the road on its route to the Citadel and we followed on foot.  Every single member of the town was out on the plaza on their cyclos.  We were the only foreigners out walking the streets despite the fact that Hue is considered one of the safest places.

Bargaining for books at a kiosk on New Year's Eve over a sleeping baby proved the best amusement.  The sales woman took to poking Robert (the happy Buddha) in the stomach.  (On the way back from Halong Bay, a girl at the Agent Orange shop joked that she wanted a kilo of the arm on his hair.)  I was assured by all that Robert could have many concubines if he had come to Vietnam alone.

A disco was going on in the lobby of our hotel for the locals and they kept playing a couple verses from Pink Floyd's The Wall.  'We don't need no education.' But exhausted  we retreated to our room and to sleep. 

The next day we took a small boat trip out to Thien Mu Pagoda up the river.  Here is located the car that Thich Quang got out of before he burnt himself in protest over the war.  From there we took the car back to pick up our luggage and to travel over the Hai Van Pass to Hoi An.

Our guide who had seen all American movies  "Ju-lia Rob-erts in Erin Bro-ko-vich told us which movies we should see with Indochine being one the one that could sum up Vietnam.  The TV has replaced movie theatres and everyone watches movies that have been copied legally or illegally.  At dusk, you can see that every home has a TV on which is showing some sort of movie  Indian, Chinese or otherwise.  Our guide said 'The Indian movies involve a love story and then dancing and then someone dies and then more dancing'.

Our hotel was the Hoi-An Riverside, which is designed and owned by the proprietor of Brother's Café in Hanoi.  Located on the river with beautiful rooms  it was hard to want to leave this place.  Within our first hours  we were anxious to attempt to skip Saigon and stay another night in Hoi An.  Robert rented motorcycles so that we could ride down to the beach.  After he learned how to ride them, I came out to learn how to ride.  After making it across the road, I determined that I could cut down on my life expectancy if I were to ride this bike down to the beach.  Robert tried to convince me that it would be fun and that I could ride on the back of his down to the beach.  I refused and it was then that he showed me that he taken a fall already and needed a small first aid repair session.

We had a ride into town and walked the streets, which were filled with various tailors, silk shops and lantern shops.  Dinner has had on the river and was very good but the annoyance of constantly being a target of small children was getting to us.  I even considered offering $1 (everything cost $1 in Vietnam) to child in order to get them to keep other children away from us.

Lonely Planet recommended Tam Tam Café as a place for homemade ice cream and it did not disappoint.  Located upstairs and filled with pool tables and tourists  we enjoyed the coconut ice cream and juices.  Back at the hotel, we had a nice sleep and breakfast in the morning.

Getting back to the hotel was a bit of a problem as there was some sort of taxi scam at the hotel in town.  We were first charged $3 per person to go back to the hotel.  This hotel would call a car for us.  We were joined by two other tourists that were told that they were riding with us but they had refused to pay them at the hotel.  Robert went back and had them refund our money when a taxi showed up from the Australian couple's hotel where the cost was only $1 per person.  We took that route.

The next day we walked through the city on a self guided tour since we were not interested in the cyclo tour arranged by our tour company.  Unfortunately we couldn't get a later flight from Da Nang to Saigon so we reluctantly were driven to the airport in order to fly to Saigon.  This was after we checked out of the hotel and were stopped dead in our tracks regarding the laundry bag. 

Robert has a technique of organizing his clothes on a trip where he divides his clean and dirty clothes.  He uses the cloth hotel bags to store his dirty clothes.  As soon as you check out in these countries, someone runs to your room to check to see that you haven't made off with the chair, sheets or TV.  We were asked if we had seen the laundry bag to which we denied any knowledge.  We made it all the way to the car before she followed us out and said 'The housekeeper saw that you had stuffed the laundry bag in your suitcase.' 

Robert paid them their $3.