[Not quite dead yet! The month of madness leading up to my departure from Japan left little time to wrap up the Vietnam Saga and (stealing from Cervantes) "other adventures that deserve to be recounted". So let's get the blogging on!]

When we last left our sexy heroes, they'd escaped the savage jungles of Bach Ma. According to The All-Knowing Tome of Thrifty Voyages, the next destination on their noble quest was the city of Hue, yet another cultural treasure trove whose significance would, in the humble opinion of your faithful narrator, surely be lost on them. And so, let us rejoin them at the moment of their first significant discovery...

Brian: "Meester Teem, what eez thees odd monument?"

Tim: "By jove, it appears to be a great silver shaft extending to the heavens! Could it be that the Vietnamese are attempting to pierce the very sky, thereby draining it of clouds and blue-ness? A truly dastardly scheme! Bring me my rifle, boy!"

Brian: "Uhhh...Meester Teem, at the reesk of arousing your ire, perhaps we should check the book?"

Tim: [sighs] "Oh, very well...it is your birthday, after all." [consults book] "Good God, man, it's worse than I imagined! It's not an enormous awl of crudely evil design, but rather the work of true evil geniuses, a flagpole! The tallest in all of Vietnam! The mere thought of the vulgar banners they might fly from such a height sullies the humours! Bring me my lobotomy kit, boy!"

I can't keep this ridiculous prose up. The flagpole is just one amazing part of Hue's Citadel, an old palace or temple full of old stuff. Though we felt obliged to go, it actually turned out to be kind of neat.

Tim sez: "I LOVE CULTURE!!!"

Some old building.

Artillery! There were eight in total. Built as a display of power, never intended to be fired...

...so Tim? He ain't scared.

After our tough day of cultural discovery and drinking, Tim returns to his natural state - comatose.

Our hellish night bus ride from Nha Trang to Hoi An taught us a very important lesson: next time, take the train. The fabulous Reunification Express runs all the way from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi. Air-conditioned sleeper cabin tickets from Hue to Hanoi were about $30 (I think?), possibly the best value of the entire trip. We enjoyed the trip so completely that we failed to take a single picture. Around 6AM the next morning, we arrived in Hanoi, where our obligatory Culture Thing was seeing the Temple of Literature. I think disciples of Confucius did stuff there.

Most of the literature seemed to be written on these crazy turtle things, of which there were over forty.

Confucius say DRUM SOLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, at long last, it rained. Fifteen minutes of pure pourage. Basically the only rain we experienced on the entire trip, I assumed we'd drown in a flood by the second day.

A temple on an island in the lake near the heart of Hanoi's Old Quarter. There's some legend about the island actually being the back of a gigantic turtle. I think. I need the book. I am nothing without the book. Tim, please send me the book.

The man himself! We threw the [Frisbee] disc around in grumpy old Vladimir's little plaza for the better part of an hour. It eventually attracted the attention of some kids, who joined in. Even a few adults walking by gave it a shot. Really fun. Ended up being our best encounter with normal (that is, not catering to tourists) Vietnamese of the entire trip. Therefore, disc == world peace.

Because property taxes were once based on street-frontage, people started building very long and very narrow. Our hotel was one such building. It was probably twelve feet wide and a hundred feet deep!

To maximize Laura's jealousy (Laura being Tim's girlfriend, unable to join us on the trip), we took a romantic one-night cruise on picturesque Halong Bay, where, without Laura's supervision, he attempted to hurt himself.

Then we flew back to Japan. Tim thought it was hard-core. I was depressed.

The End