We left a drzzly Hanoi at 7pm bound for Hue. The day didn't start very promisingly as I woke at 10.15 and panicked, for two reasons, I was missing breakfast and I had tocheck out at 12. the room I was in had no windows and it was impossible to tell the time of day by the light but trusting my $2 Chinese watch I leapt out of bed into and out of the shower, grabbed my toiletries and shoved them in my bag, quickly folded my clothes and packed them. Last thing to go in the suitcase is my computer. I had to check an email for my hotel booking so I booted it up and happened to glance at the time, 4.44. I got my phone and looked, 4.44! I checked my inscrutable Chinese watch and found I was looking at the stopwatch function.
So back to bed, but before that I looked ast my emails and realised I had booked the hotel for that day and not the next, Oh well simply fixed I thought just email them and change the dates . Not so simple. They refused to change, so I have to pay for the night I'm not there. Oh yes, and when I packed my suitcase I clicked the combination lock closed and then found that when I wanted to get something out I had inadvertently changed the combination. I took the suitcase downstairs and within minutes they broke the lock open. They only bent the shaft to open it so I went to the motorcycle mechanics shop next door to see if they could get it open, it had a little keyway on the bottom and I figured that people must lose the keys of their scooters and maybe they were equipped to open locks. This motorcycle mechanics shop is about 5 feet wide and 10 feet deep, the smallest mechanics shop in the world but they seemed to have lots of work there. People pull up on their scooters and the guys come out and root around in the innards of the bikes and usually within minutes the bike is back on the road. And I've been saying how friendly Hanoians are, these guys were'nt. Every westerner to the Vietnamese is wealthy and I was staying at the hotel next door so obviously I was a millionaire, maybe that was it but my query about the lock just bought a sour look and a wave down the street. I have seen locksmiths working in the street so I trudged off about 500 metres to no avail. When I came back Johnnie and I decided to go walking so when I passed the repair shop again the young guys were gone and an elderly man was sitting there. I approached him with the lock and made a key turning motion, NO he said, then more forcefully NO with a scowl . It was bound to happen, maybe I'd been lucky meeting all the nice ones.
So we go on our walk to the lake to find the best coffee shop and find ourselves on the oppposite side of the lake to what we should be. Two smartly dressed girls on scooters pull up and give us the line we've heard before, we are uni students on holidays giving motor scooter tours of the city, maybe I'm cynical but I don't believe them. We show them the map and they point out a place a mile away from where I think we are and we don't believe them. Dickheads we are. In the end we get a taxi after wandering aimlessly and they were right.
We get back to the hotel with an afternoon to kill waiting for the 7pm train so we sit out the front of the hotel chatting with a Finn and an Italian. Me, trying to be funny says, have you heard the joke about the Canadian the Australian the Finn and the Italian, they walk into a bar and...so on---jeez everyone's heard a joke starting with that or similar line, not these guys, they looked at me with dumb incomprehension. Maybe its an Australian thing. Or maybe they were waiting for the punchline I didn't have.
The two Vietnamese from the hotel join the party and go and get Tiger beer and after many clinks of bottles and a few laughs we get a taxi to the station.
 
On the Reunification Express Number One and we share the 4 berth cabin with a Dane and a tour guide from Cambodia. We booked a soft sleeper as they call them which means the mattress is 50mm thick. Air conditioning was a plus but the mouse shit everywhere was a minus . I knew I would have trouble sleeping and I desoerately wanted to so I took 2 Valium. It din't help. After experiencing a first thrill of being on a long distance train it started to pall a little. The highlight of the night if you can call it that was Vietnamese children screaming with high pitched laughter at what seemed to be one in the morning but turned out to be 10pm. At about 4 in the morning I woke for a call of nature and saw an apparition before me. The Dane was sitting up in bed stark naked and looking like a Buddha. I said Good Morning, no answer, was I seeing things? 
We arrived in Hue one hour late due to some unforseen hold ups on the line and taxied to the hotel which turned out to be a good one, for me at least, Johnnies room is cramped, mine has three windows giving a good outlook either way.
We had a whole day ahead of us so it was off to the Citadel a huge sprawling complex built by a Nguyen prince and partly demolished by American bombing during the Tet offensive of 1968. The South Vietnamese forces used the Citadel as their HQ and the Viet Cong captured it after heavy fighting the signs of which are still on the bullet pocked walls . To recapture the Citadel bombing destroyed significant culturally important building which are still in the process of being rebuilt.
Just to round off my day, when I was paying for the tickets at the main gate I gave the lady a 500,000 dong note. Using her magical powers and by some cunning misdirection she convinced me I had given her too little. It was a neat trick and took me by surprise, though it doesnt take much to do that. By the time we had paid and gone through I realised what she had done. Too late of course to go back and say I gave you 500,000. The moment was lost. If ever any of you come here, watch out.
Down town for dinner, Johnnie thinks he might have Malaria, had fried pork in peanut sauce and on the way home couldn't resist Ban Mo which is rice paper spring rolls with peanut sauce and chili.
Tired as all hell after the train, More adventures to come, maybe one day here on rented scooters then off to Danang or Hoi An.