Train from Danang to hue, day one in hue

Gem: We weren't attacked by the typhoon. We woke up this morning to a bit of sunshine and as the day went on it became a lovely day and very hot. We got up early today with a bit of a hangover and had a quick breakfast at half six and headed to danang train station at about 7:30 to get our train. The train was delayed until half past nine so we sat in the waiting room and chatted to an American guy Called Neil, he must have been 60. He was travelling to,lots of different places as he used to work in stocks and shares and is now splashing his cash, leaving an apartment back in new York and a kid in brazil. He lived and dated a woman in brazil for a fair few years and then he candidly said that he now lives out in the phillapines as at his age it is so difficult to get a woman that he has to go somewhere like that. Phill thought it kinda odd and Perverse but I suppose we don't know what the reality of being that old and being single is and he seemed pretty happy to travel the world, go back to new York when it suited him and have access to interested women in exotic countries. Now he was candid but I wouldn't know how far his money got him in those situations and those 'dates', if you know what I mean. His business, he was a nice enough man and he offered for us to crash in his new York apartment next year for £80 per day which is good.
We got the train and had good, comfy, air conditioned seats. The train ride was pretty hair raising as this was the section of the trip that headed up into the mountains with very sheer drops and mountain faces. Watching the rickety old train hoisting itself up the hills was no mean feat. The scenery was beautiful.

We arrived safely in hue and jumped in a taxi for the jade hotel. Now this hotel I booked back In march time as we just needed a one night cheap stay and it was ten quid for the night. I wasn't expecting much, I had read some reviews and they sounded very positive but, seriously, ten quid would get you some milk and bread in the uk at the mo.
I was to be pleasantly surprised.....
We walked into the air conditioned lobby for our luggage to be taken off us and put to one side while we checked in. We were asked to take a seat by a very pretty lady with a genuine smile. I instantly liked her. A few minutes later the luggage had been taken to the room and ice cold orange juice and a platter of fresh fruit were put down I front of us, along with some cold flannels. Afterwards we were escorted to our room and shown how to switch on the hot water and air con, we had a fridge, really good shower, large comfy bed, working air con, tea and coffee, kettle, water and glasses, smellies in the bathroom and clean towels. What more do you need? The room was tidy, clean, smelt nice and was just an all round simply decorated but nice room. We got our map and headed downstairs to be asked if we would like a refreshment before hitting the streets as it was hot outside, we declined and headed off past a bahn my street vendor, phill couldn't resist. He asked in Vietnamese and got asked if he would like the dog meat baguette and he kindly said no! He had the pork, I tasted it and it was delish. The dog meat looked like reformed meat, like spam but lighter in colour. Anyway, off that subject!
We headed to the cafe on thu wheels to check the location for going back there tonight to eat.
I had a map and knew where we were going so we wandered to the large market on the other side of the centre, over the bridge, stopping off for a Vietnamese coffee and pastry on the way at the ' le boulangerie Francais'. We had been walking for about an hour and a half and got to the market. Omg, this was an immense market. We bought some lemongrass, incense sticks and the coil ones from the temples, some coffee and I got two bags.
All in all a good hour or so was spent at the market but it began to get a bit claustrophobic so we left and headed back down towards the bridge. As we were nearing the end of the bridge the heavens opened and it chucked it down.
We are used to it now so the cags went on and our feet got soaked as we continued to walk. This is the optimum time for some taxi curb crawling and I don't blame them, but we are getting hardened to it so we said no to all of them and manned up. After about half an hour it stopped, with water dripping off our noses and soggy feet we were scouting out some bars that I had read about and marked out on the map earlier that day so I went to show phill them, they were only just round the corner from our hotel, what a fab choice of hotel, even if I do say so myself. We went to a shop called healing wounded hearts, a charity that employs disabled people and profits go to a heart hospital. After buying another bag, little notebook and notelets we headed back to the hotel to be greeted with a refreshment and then went to the room to get ready to go out.
A taxi arrived to take us to the cafe on thu wheels. We had been looking forward to this. I found the place on trip advisor back in feb time and it had really good reviews but looked a bit grim. When we popped our heads in today it didn't disappoint on the whole grime look, it had graffiti all over the walls, plastic chairs, sticky menus and was tiny.
We arrived a few mins later and began looking at the menu which was full of Vietnamese food with some western at the back. Phill opted for a beer and I asked for a glass of local Dalat red wine which I am getting used to. They only sold it in bottles which confused me as I had already seen the price of what I thought was a glass, nope.....it was £2 something for the bottle, we got a bottle and the guy poured me a glass and put the remainder in the fridge. We tucked into quite a few plates of sharing local Vietnamese food. We had lemongrass chicken, fried noodles with veg and cashews, spring rolls and dipping sauce, Bahn xeo and prawns. It became evident that this was a family ran place and we started up a conversation with thuan, a man a bit older than us who was one of the owners and who loves 80s rock. He sat having a beer and some noodles and I think a spliff or ten and kept playing about with the music settings so we got the perfect sound!! I think he was a little off his face but lovely nonetheless, he was chatty and helpful. It turns out that the cafe is a play on words which we knew anyway as we knew they offered motorbike tours and the thu being two wheels but we didn't know that thu was actually his sisters name. The lady cooking the food was their eighty something year old mum with a hunched back from bending over in the tunnels for all that time. She actually gave birth to thu and thuan in the tunnels, pretty amazing.
We really liked the place and the next minute phill had a pen in his hand and stood on a table adding to the graffiti messages on the walls. We liked the family and so we were chatting for some time and then we decided that we would like to organise one of their famous bike tours. 400000 dong was handed over (only £12) and it was arranged that thuans brother, Minh would pick us up from the hotel at nine an for a tour.



















We had about four beers, a bottle of wine and five plates of food and the bill came to a tenner,320000 dong. We have never tipped a place 50% before, we would t dream of it back home but I handed over a 500000 note which is only about £15 and sternly told the sister I didn't want any change and that they need to increase their prices but she wanted to give me change anyway, after phill explaining that for the quality and what we had it was too cheap and we would really like to pay what we thought we should pay she smiled and hugged us and seemed so proud and then her mum came out of the kitchen and was beaming with joy. I know a lot of it is relative and I haven't been tipping everywhere here, some restaurants have the 5% service included anyway and we paid so much service charge in six senses that we only gave the butler 500000 dong but hey, better than a slap in the face and wasn't even one percent of the bill anyway.
So, back to the cafe. It was fab. Many thanks to Lynn and Glynn, I can't tell you just how impressed you would be with this little cafe, you would have loved it.

We headed out to a couple of bars, bumped into bjarne again, drank cocktails and had far too many tequila shots. Phill was a bad influence with mohitos as they were bogof. A bit weary and far too late we walked back to the jade hotel to get our head down for a few hours as 8am was the beginning of a new experience, our bike tour.



Tequila makes Gemma pull her sleepy face!

Location:Jade hotel, hue