Hue, Vietnam

Everyone on the bus said you can't take kip (Lao money) out of Laos. So when a band of women got onto the bus just before the border, asking if we wanted to change money, everyone changed money. But they gave me a lousy rate. Later, at the border, I saw a money exchange booth. I took my last 6,000 kip there they they changed it at the correct rate. Who propogates this myth that you can't change money? This was the first Vietnamese rip off. Followed shortly after by the taxi in Hue, who wanted four dollars to take us to the centre, a trip we could have managed on foot, if we had had the faintest idea where we were. Then the hotel that gave us rooms for 120,000 dong, half an hour later, by which time we had dragged our bags upstairs and started unpacking them, discovered that she "was in trouble with her boss" and had to charge us 150,000 dong.

Welcome to Vietnam. All this was a bit of a disappointment after honest Laos. And Hue is a big city, also a bit of a shock after living in bamboo huts in the hills of Laos.

However, I decided to improve the shining hour by visiting the ancient imperial walled city, and the forbidden city - a walled city within a walled city. The Americans bombed the ancient city to bits, but they left the old city walls. There are two moats, rather full of weed due to eutrification, which interferes with the water lilies and purple water hyacinths, which struggle bravely to survive.

There are still some imperial palaces in the forbidden city. I'm not sure whether they were re-built or whether they survived the bombs.