Easy Riders ... Hai Van Pass Adventures ...

Day 145 ... For anyone wondering...yes, you can catch a cold in SE Asia in 27 degree heat, and if anyone is going to catch one, it's going to be me! Today is going to be fun!
So last night I told Adam we had an early start today (7am wake up call) to be picked up at 8am for the ride over the Hai Van Pass on the Easy Riders. Adam being the early bird he is said can we not make it 9am pick up instead. So I emailed the guys and asked to change the time. So we were picked up at 9am and set off on our day tour/trip to Hue. We stopped off at a few places along the way including a pagoda on the side of a cliff, a fisherman's village which was covered in rubbish and just a few boats in the water, the elephant springs which we're not much to shout about and definitely not somewhere you would want to swim and finally a coffee stop (which was like liquorice syrup which I just couldn't drink!) Along the way we stopped off at a few spots along the Hai Van Pass to get some amazing photos of the views! The temperature significantly dropped as soon as we got over the other side of the Pass and we had to get our spare hoodies out to layer up, then the pac a macs came out for a windbreak on the bike too as it was so windy and pretty cold! Thankfully, the seats on the Easy Rider bikes were really padded and comfy so the drive over, although it took from 9am to 4pm with a number of stops along the way was pretty comfy! We stopped off at a beach side town for lunch and we both had 2 hoodies on and we were still cold. We decided to order some seafood for lunch so ordered shrimp and some snapper, unfortunately we ordered the fried snapper by mistake which was like rock hard crispy fish, not pleasant to eat! I'm not sure the work was worth the reward with the shrimp, they were whole shrimp so we had to de head, leg and shell all 10 of them. Not ideal as neither of us really like doing it! When we finally arrived at our hotel, we checked in and went to find he nearest, decent looking

restaurant for an early dinner. Italian it is, average but did the job

Day 146 ... Still full of a cold so we're just having a chilled day at the hotel as the weather is pretty miserable here anyway. We took our laundry to a place straight across the road from our hotel as it was getting a little desperate! And we got it all back, clean and dry by 7pm that night! Great service! We went for a short walk at lunch time as it was raining, to find somewhere for food. We found Gecko cafe which did nice enough food so that maybe our regular place for lunch! Although when Adam ordered a white coffee, all he go was, what looked like, a shot of espresso in a big cup with a tiny jug of condensed milk, not quite what he was expecting but there are so many variations on coffee in Vietnam, you never really know what you're going to get. After pouring some of the condensed milk into my frappuccino, it was really nice, just needed sweetening up! We found a place just across the road from Gecko for dinner called Tipsy, which wasn't too bad either, after sitting down in a restaurant, looking at the menu and making a swift exit after seeing the words 'intestine, wild boar, frog and pigs ear' along with all sorts of other strange things we do not include in our day to day (or ever) food vocabulary/menu!

Day 147 ... Not feeling 100% yet and neither is the weather. I think Hue is going to be a relaxing, coding and travel diary/photobook updating few days. Another grey, drizzly day. We'll just got for a bit of a walk at lunchtime and find a cafe for lunch! Then back to our favourite Gecko Restaurant for dinner. We actually put the heating on in the hotel room tonight instead of the aircon for the first time since we set off on our travels!

Day 148 ... We have sunshine for the first time since we arrived in Hue, so we went round the pool at the hotel for a couple of hours, then to our usual for lunch and dinner. Plus a sneaky Baskin Robbins for dessert! now it's time to pack for our flight to Hanoi tomorrow afternoon after we pick a bit of extra washing we dropped off earlier so we have nice fresh hoodie and comfy pants for travelling home in!!