Not bad for the price of a Happy Meal

Not that we are entirely sure of the cost of a Happy Meal but we think it is somewhere around what we paid for our day trip today.

We had heard that there are two types of Vietnamese tour guide
1) very nice
2) never going to see you again so don't care

Have been spoilt by our week with Wing and Tin Tin but feel we definately met option 2 today!

We also decided that we have obviously been travelling in SE Asia for a while now as on principle when told we had to pay to get in to some gardens we had been told were free we

1) objected pleasantly to the tour guide
2) didn't bother going in
3) worked out it would have cost us less than the price of a 2nd class stamp!

But hey we've seen lots of gardens and by the time we had worked out half the group were objecting as well, the other half had been in and come out again!

Still it was a busy day and very enjoyable. Having decided to ignore the guide completely (apart from 'when do we have to be back') we saw the Royal Tombs of Tu Duc, Ming Mang and Khai Dinh. All very different - Ming Mang very peaceful surrounded by water, Khai Dinh quite imposing on a hill with lots of mosaic work and Tu Duc was a bit sad really - he doesn't seem to have been a very happy chappy. Also saw a pagoda somewhere but I forget its name.

Got to the tombs via a dragon boat cruise along the river - lunch on board - much nicer than we were expecting!

Back for dinner and a bit of a planning session. We've been scuppered by the holiday season again. Having worked out we could fly from Hue airport to Hanoi to save some time the airport is closing and is only operating one flight a day at 10pm. Due to holiday all flights full until 5th May. Of course could do bus or night train but we have loads of those coming up in China and lazily couldn't be bothered (and I confess, the locals do not travel well and my ability to cope with more ill SE Asians on any mode of transport is reducing dramatically!). Consequently we have another three days to fill here and a bit less time in Hanoi than we were planning on. Never mind, we're going to the pool again tomorrow and enjoying the 'chill time' (and the western food - ahem, ooops) a bit before we pick up the pace again from Hanoi to the end.

Did I mention we are now on the last page of our big trip calendar??? We got the China book out today and started to read a bit of it....... Did I just mention 'the end' ?????? Oh the trauma.