Top Gear

DMZ Bar, Hué

The next morning we set off on a 3-day boat tour of Ha Long Bay (the place with the floating bar where the Top Gear Vietnam episode finished up). Although the weather was decidedly cool and a little misty, the bay was spectacular, full of randomly shaped bits of jutting mountain, and the water transparently turquoise. On the first day we stopped at a floating dock, rented a two-man kayak and paddled around the bay for an hour or so before returning for a beer sold by a passing canoe. I got wet, but Tweedie got wetter, mainly because I was in the back seat and it is easier to flick water forwards than backwards with an oar. We had dinner on the boat with the other 12 people on our trip (mainly Aussies and Brits, plus my first Luxembourgian), and some beers on the top deck before bed. On the rest of the trip we saw some big and capacious caves, a little island full of wild monkeys, and generally sat on deck floating through Ha Long Bay. Memorable.

We got back to Hanoi in the evening and caught an overnight train over the 400 or so miles south to Hué (pronouned as in "Who a-te all the pies?"), where the temperature was immediately restored to its previous South Asian swelter. Hué was the capital of Vietnam many centuries ago, and has some impressive old buildings within its historic citadel, as well as a picturesque river and some buzzing nightspots. It is also used as a base for tours to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), an area five kilometres either side of the old North/South border which was officially 'demilitarised' during the war but was in reality bombed to buggery, and some of the military bases and results of the destruction wreaked are chillingly preserved. We did a long, long bus tour yesterday - the DMZ itself is 3 hrs from Hué, and is 100 km east to west with no particular clustering of tourist spots - of which the undoubted highlight was scrambling through the Vinh Moc tunnels the North Vietnamese built to protect themselves from American bombling. They are 25m underground, at best sparsely lit and no more than 6 feet tall or 2 feet wide, not to mention muddy and stinking hot. Fascinating though.

We did all of this with a lovely and really fun Australian couple, Paul and Gillian, whom we met on the boat. As well being some relaxing and enjoyable company, this has meant our alcohol consumption has increased approximately elevenfold, and has given me a new audience for my ever-expanding repertoire of Dong jokes.

Today it is raining really rather hard, so we have holed up in a bar with free pool and internet, hoping it clears after lunchtime (locals think this is highly unlikely - "tomorrow also" they inform me, laughing). We have purchased tourist-friendly cagoules, or whatever the correct name is for a sheet of plastic with holes for arms and head, and will probably brave the elements if necessary, although that is easier to say from inside.

Tomorrow is the 35th anniversary of reunification, and various military processions to mark this and celebrate the glory of communist Vietnam are being rehearsed in the old part of the city, over the river from where I write. Their uniforms will be very wet.

Over.