CENTRAL VIETNAM COAST 25/4/09

The Cham Empire ruins at My Son

Busy making 'antiques' in Hoi An

Crowd seeking the shade at Danang football stadium

Hoi An high street

Poor week for Western, as one of his guides thought he was 57. Ell also took a bit of a bodyblow, when someone called her Harry Potter (thats the 2nd time on this trip, and the 3rd overall - the first being 2 outside Upton park when she accidentally held up the queue for burgers).

After the initial frustrations over bus transport in Vietnams Mekong Delta, (see breaking point entry) we have very much landed back on the tourist trail. The coastal route is a well trodden path and various private bus companies pick you up at your hotel and drop you at their sister hotel next town north or south. It makes for very comfortable and easy travel and should be appreciated before we start to loosen things up a bit later in the trip. Notable highlights have been the 19th and 20th century Emporers' Citadel and tombs in Hue, the beautifully preserved trading port of Hoi An - where Fanny and Heston did another day at cookery school and our first live football game of the trip - top of the table Danang versus a Saigon-based side. 1-0 to Danang with the winner in the 93rd minute. A well-natured crowd of 15,000 spent much of the game laughing at the ineptitude of their attackers as gilt-edged chances were discarded a la Zamora. Needless to say, no crowd segregation or stewards just police in riot gear. We treated ouurselves to top seats which cost $1.25. The cheapest were those behind the goal in the full sun at 60cents.

Cookery school was very good. Fresh rice paper rolls, vietnamese pancakes, aubergine clay-pot and fnally some over fussy tomato peeling decoration - it should have looked like a rose, but Western's more resembled a pile of discarded tomato skin. At the moment, we are in Na Trang, Vietnam's premier dive location - we opted for a snorkelling trip instead which provided us with great visibility and a healthy siting of tropical favourites, such a trigger fish, angel fish, parrott fish, clown fish, butterfly fish, and puffer fish.

Big day tomorrow, we have hired 2 of the infamous 'Easy Rider' bikers to take us up into the central highlands on a 3 day spectacular. We have met that many travellers who have said its the best thing they have done here that we feel compelled to don the leathers and take this trip.

El has just realised that all of the statues we have been seeing around the country are not Col. Sanders but Uncle Ho (Chin Min).