As usual we were dropped off by the guesthouse of the drivers choice and were given the hard sell as usual, but we'd chosen a guesthouse from the guidebook and walked to it. On the way moto-taxis were desperately trying to get us to go to their guesthouse, one was most persistent!

We got to the guesthouse only to find that it had gone upmarket, a double room would cost 12 dollars! Mister Persistent moto-taxi was touting for our second choice guesthouse so we followed, and at 5 dollars we took it.

We headed over to the Citadel, a world heritage site, and decided to tour the palace. It cost us 55,000 Dong each (over 3 dollars!). The palace was set over a large area with many enclosures and buildings, mostly destroyed. We then had a walk around the Ctadel itself, which was just a walled area in the city.

So, we'd done the main attractions in Hue. In our first few hours. We booked to be on the 1pm bus the following day to Hoi An. We then went to find a bar listed in my guidebook, we must have passed the alley it was down twice before we found it.

'Cafe O Thu Wheels' is decorated with graffiti from all the people who have passed through and postcards from where they came from (I knew I should have brought some from home!). There were two from Nottingham, but none from Hamilton, New Zealand (hard luck Dave. What would they have had on them anyway?)

The owner, Thu, introduced herself and quickly told us about herself and the bar. She was a very funny woman. She asked me to hold out my hand, palm up, she looked at it and said 'Ah your girlfriend left you.', 'Several' I said, 'Just as I thought, Five Dollars!'. She told us to come in later as she was also a dating agency. A girl came in, and as all the tables were taken Thu sat her with us. Thu came over again and told me to hold out my hand and she place a bank note in it and said 'Phone your parents and tell them you're not coming home tonight'.

The girl, Kate, was English and had arrived by train, but two of her friends, the two Scottish girls had travelled by bus with us. After a while the two Scottish girls, Ariane and an old Aussie bloke joined us. Most of them knew each other from a trip up to Ha Long Bay, a place I wouldn't mind going to if I ever come back this way.

I got talking to one of the Scottish girls, Anna (her sister was called Jody), she had been living and working in Leeds, so we had a long talk about where we lived, worked, ate and drank (she used to go to the Atrium alot).

Dave and I left to get changed and stuff for the evening. There aren't many places in Hue to go so we ended up back at Thu's. One of the things Thu also does is sell motorcycle tours. There are a few other sights around Hue but the boat trips also involved alot of walking or short motorcycle trips at extra expense. We told her we were leaving at 1pm the following day, but she still sold us a bike tour. At our table we were joined by a German couple and we spent an hour or so talking about stuff before they left and we headed off to the 'DMZ Bar' which was a little closer to our guesthouse. It was full, but everyone seemed to be keeping to themselves. We had a quick beer and a relatively early night.