Fore-Tracks

Not really a lot to talk about today.  We stayed at the beach resort in Hoi An until noon.  Walked along the beach, bought some polo shirt knock offs, cooled off in the pool for a while.  I guess you could say I got lucky at lunch.  I sat at a table of 4 where 2 people are scared to try anything other than white rice, and the 3rd doesn’t eat sea food.  So with our meals being mostly seafood I pretty much ate for 4 today.

We stopped at a museum but really the most interesting thing we did today was the 70km drive to Hue.  The first 21km was a drive up and down a steep winding mountain pass with some nice views.  The final 50km was mostly flat with local houses and rice fields the whole way.  It was interesting that even in this generally rural stretch of road there were always motor cycles and bicycles.  We were in a big bus generally driving down the middle of the road because the bikes don’t always just scoot over and let you by.  There were also at least two times where big trucks coming the other direction were passing slow trucks and coming head on towards us only to squeeze back into his own lane at the last second.  But I had never seen rice fields and this drive through rural Vietnam pretty much matched any preconceived images I had.  green fields of rice, small streams/rivers suppling them water, palm trees.

Still haven’t really adjusted to the time difference yet.  Going to bed at 9 every night and getting up somewhere between 4 and 6.  Tomorrow is Easter.  We are taking a boat up a river to the area to the palaces of the the old empires.  Then we have a 9:30pm flight to Hanoi.  Been in bed every night by 9, but now our flight is going to be later than that.