Arrival Hoi An
Trip Start
Nov 21, 2007
1
8
12
Trip End
Ongoing
Bus arrived in Hue at 10.10am (Late).We had a break until 2pm so we walked to the Vietcom bank and the pharmacy then stopped to eat chips on the way back. It was just as well we got back early as the 2pm bus left at 1.40pm! We fell back asleep on the bus and I woke to find we were in perhaps the longest tunnel I've ever been in (and I was in the St Bernadino in Switzerland which is 6.5km long). From a quick search on the net I believe it may have been the Hai Van Pass tunnel which is on the main north-south corridor in Vietnam. It says it's 6.3km so I was close. The landscape in Central Vietnam is very pretty. I get the feeling that I am in a country that has been completely flooded and you can only see the tips of the land. There are red and blue boats everywhere and plenty of people working the paddy fields. It looks like backbreaking work and many of the workers have very distorted postures. Most people wear the conical hats and surgery masks to keep out the pollution. I was so naive that when I first arrived in Malaysia and saw people at the food centre wearing them I thought that they were just very hygenic around the food! It was only weeks later when I noticed a persistent cough when walking the streets that I realised it was the pollution. It's a huge problem here. I've never experienced anything like it. I'm going to get disgusting and tell you that if you blow your nose anywhere in Asia, what comes out is invariably black! I can't understand why they put up with it but I do now understand why they all smoke.
