Day 148. Hue, Vietnam. War, more war and aggresive goldfish.

Spent much of the day exploring the Citadel of this historically important town on the banks of the fantastically named Perfume river.

A wide moat surrounds the ramparts and walls forming what would've been an impregnable 10k barrier to anyone who fancied having a pop at Emperor Gin Long 200 years ago.

Sadly, the battlements were no match for the French who muscled their way in and ransacked the original palace in 1885. According to one account they removed anything that wasn't bolted down, from gold and silver ornaments right down to mosquito nets and tooth picks. Then, just for good measure, burnt the imperial library to the ground. Zoot alors!

Worse was to come 83 years later during the Tet offensive when the VC stormed South Vietnam's third largest City and did no end of damage. They rounded up monks, priests, intellectuals and any other poor sod they didn't like the look of and summarily clubbed them to death. Charmers that they were.

There then followed some of the bloodiest fighting seen in the entire Vietnam war as the Yanks rolled out their biggest guns. Most of the buildings inside the Citadel were levelled and it's thought more than 10,000 people perished.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that there isn't a great deal left to see inside the old quarter. A few rebuilt Pagodas here and there and some nice old urns, but by far the most memorable site (to a pair of plebs like me and Wend) was the pond filled with giant Carp.

Toss in a handful of biscuit crumbs and you get to see fighting so frenzied you'd think the French had invaded again.

Hue, by the way, means 'peace' in England.

Day 147. Hue, Vietnam. Downtime.

Nothing amusing or remotely interesting happened today.

We paid over the odds at lunchtime for some decidedly average Italian food, I bought a new pen and our evening flight to Hue was delayed by an hour.

And that was it.

Day 146. Hanoi, Vietnam. Respect to Uncle Ho.

Morbid curiosity led us this morning to the mausoleum complex where Ho Chi Minh was laid to rest 38 years ago. He's still a big draw and even though we arrived well before the 8.30 kick off there were already a couple of hundred people ahead of us in the queue.

It was surreal.

Firstly we had to go through a ridiculously stringent security check where I had to hand in my camera and Wend leave behind her torch. They were obviously worried she was going to shine the thing up the great man's nostrils.

Another 10 minutes and we were in another queue, this time lined by guards toting AK47s, one of whom shouted at me to take my hands out of my pockets.

No, I'm not kidding, he really did. He then threatened me with detention if I didn't tuck my shirt tail in.

Eventually we were allowed to file into the huge, grey marble mausoleum itself. A grim, austere building complete with a 30 ft hammer & sickle etched onto the wall
surrounding the dimly lit inner sanctum.

Disneyland this ain't, was my initial reaction. But when we saw Uncle Ho lying on an ornate plinth inside a large glass box, it really did look like something out of Sleeping Beauty, especially as the only objects he had for company were a couple of thousand rose petals.

It has to be said that he's not looking too terrific these days, and I'm not sure how long they can keep this show running. He's dispatched to Russia for a couple of months each year to undergo essential maintenance, but the cracks are starting to show quite spectacularly.

Maybe they should do what the bloke asked for in his will and give him a dignified, no nonsense cremation.

Our strange morning continued with a visit to the adjacent Ho Chi Minh museum, an extraordinarily ugly building that's home to some of the world's dullest exhibits.

The stuff relating to Ho's life and times was OK, but there was an entire wing dedicated to the 'highlights' of every Party conference held in Hanoi since 1959. This involved countless photo's of portly politicians thumping lecterns, sweating, and generally boring the arses off anyone unfortunate enough to be in the audience.

As we were leaving I noticed a large framed picture of what seemed like a row of filing cabinets. Intrigued, I rushed to read the caption which thankfully they'd translated into English.

'Storage systems for names and address's of Party members'

Like I said...surreal.

Day 145. Hanoi, Vietnam. Are we there yet?

Such are the vagaries of the Vietnamese transport system that the 3 hour journey we took to Halong Bay from Hanoi became a 6 hour journey on the return leg.

Sank a few beers with our shipmates in the evening to get over the ordeal.

Day 144. Cat Ba Island, Vietnam. Burn those calories.

A day of trekking and kayaking, which came as some relief, as we've done little else but scoff noodles and neck lager for the past four weeks.

We teamed up with Rob & Dave, a pair of likely lads from Sydney who have come to Vietnam via Everest base camp in Nepal where the trekking is a little more hardcore, and Roy & Claire who form a decidedly unlikely Manchester/California combo (with a name like Roy, I think you can guess which one is the Manc).

It was a good old walk too. Maybe not quite the Himalayas, and probably not even as arduous as our rock climb in El Nido, but a decent workout nevertheless and we ended up high above the bay with superb views to the horizon.

The afternoon was a less strenuous affair. After being so completely rubbish at Kayaking in New Zealand, then only marginally less crap in Thailand, we're finally starting to get the hang of the thing, managing to complete a full 20 minutes of paddling without one serious wobble or collision.

It's all in the stroke co-ordination kids.

Day 143. Halong Bay, Vietnam. A load of Junk.

We were keen to see the dramatic sweep of Halong Bay so signed up for a mini tour that included a night on a Junk and a night on one of the area's bigger islands. An absolute snip at twenty five quid with all meals and transport thrown in.

The bay, which sits 3 hours east of Hanoi reminded us a lot of El Nido in the Philippines, the large craggy karsts sitting out in the ocean seeming very familiar.

They're not as big as their Philippino cousins, but there are more of them, stretching all the way up to Chinese waters and beyond. So despite the tourist hordes, we couldn't fail to be impressed.

Tourism has gone bananas in this part of Vietnam over the past few years and I suspect in the height of summer it must be borderline unbearable. At one point we were herded from our boat into this enormous cave that ordinarily would have been a bit of a jaw dropper. But they've illuminated the inside with garish green and orange lights, laid a crazy paving pathway and even built a sodding fountain at the farthest end. All a bit rubbish really, especially when it's three deep at every stalagmite.

Wend had an altercation with a little bald Canadian when the keys to the cabins were dished out. Something to do with an upside down 6 being confused with a 9. I was tempted to chin him but decided it would be bad for passenger morale.

Day 142. Hanoi, Vietnam. No strings...

Went to Hanoi's famous Water Puppet Theatre (whaddya mean, you've never heard of it?). Based on an ancient art form that began over 1000 years ago on the Red River flood plain, it's listed as a 'must see' in our guide book.

Well, the Smiths had a split decision tonight on whether or not the book was right. Wend thought it charming and mesmerising, while I found it interesting yet strangely disturbing.

From Scene One there was something mildly disconcerting about the show, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what it was. The production was certainly very clever, with each puppeteer operating unseen from a darkened tank the size of a small swimming pool. But there was a certain element that just didn't seem right, and the longer I watched, the more uneasy I became.

Afterwards we had the chance to view replicas of the puppets in the Theatre foyer, and this is when I finally realised what had been bugging me.

The principal puppet looked exactly like one of my mates.

I'd just spent an hour and a half watching Juzz fishing for frogs, Juzz slaying Dragons and - most unlikely of all - Juzz wooing a pretty peasant girl with a dainty little dance.

Wrong, wrong and wrong again.

I'll be writing to the production company asking them to stop using the Juzz puppet immediately, or at least come up with some material better suited to his character.
A cider drinking scene would be good, or better still, a 20 minute monologue where he
moans to the audience about how crap the beer in Hanoi is.