== The Journey South 1 ==

After coming back from northern Vietnam we hung around Hanoi for another day, and then started our way southwards. Hanoi is the northern capital and Ho Chi Min City (aka Saigon) is the southern capital, and we planned to travel the way between the cities via the "Open Bus" service. You buy a ticket which allows you to hop cities along the way south, deciding by yourself how much time you'd like to stay at each site. The ticket we bought allowed us to stop at the following cities along the way: Hue, Hoi-An, Nha Trang and Dalat.

Typhoon Xangsane (The Elephant Hurricane)
Traveling south we encountered the devastation caused a couple of days before by one of the biggest storms to hit Vietnam in the past decade. Following are some pictures of the things we saw. Here's a link where you can see the immense floods the typhoon caused (especially around Hoi-An where we visited several days after it past). And here's a satellite photo.

This guy told us that the water came up to where his shoulder is in the picture, and yes that's water hiding his legs:

A sad fact is that the people whose houses were destroyed were the poor, who can't afford a strongly built house:

Hue
Up until 1945 Hue was the imperial capital of Vietnam. On that year, the last emperor of the Nguyen dynasty gave up his reign for the sake of the communist party headed by Ho Chi Min.

Hue was also the site of the bloodiest battles of the 1968 Tet Offensive against the US forces in Vietnam, in which the Viet-Kong in alliance with North Vietnam's army attempted to gain control of the main cities in southern Vietnam. The offensive was a complete surprise to the American forces which up until that point fought the Viet-Kong in the jungles, while the VK used gerilla tactics. The Offensive was a huge success, and Hue was captured for 3.5 weeks, the longest period any city was controlled by the VK.

The main attraction in this city is the Citadel which was built during the 19th century and is surrounded by a 10km perimeter of 4m high wall. Here are several pictures we took during our visit there:

One of many massive gates in the Citadel:

The Citadel's Moat - 4m deep, 30m across, 10km long and filled with water + water plants, oh and Tali's there as well :) :

A Black Dragon that insisted to imitate Yoni:

Yet another Pagoda near the Citadel:

A lovely restaurant we had a nice lunch in:

The first course in the meal - The Spring Roll Peacock:

Lion-Dragon Dancing Festival
Luckily we had the chance to see a festival in Hue and in Hoi An. This certain festival is celebrated once a year in a full moon night around October. The children of the city organize into groups, each giving off a show in the street of dancing Lion-Dragons (a mythological beast). They go around the main city streets, going from shop to shop, and dance to the loud rhythmic sounds of drums. Here are some photos we took (the videos are even better, but you'll have to wait for us to see those...):

The Lion-Dragon controls the Human Race:

The Fat guy controls the Earth, and always appears together with the Lion-Dragon for some reason:

One of the more ugly ones that yoni liked: