The DMZ tour was a bit of nothing much - the guide was incomprehensible, so there was a lot of driving and he'd point to various rock outcrops and tell us what happened in each during the war, or so I assume - for all I know he was just saying we were all capitalist pigs who deserved to die. Did go to some tunnels they built for shelter while the place was being heavily bombed - pretty impressive; carved into hard rock, 4 levels deep with lots of rooms for families to stay in (about 6ftx4ft, and 5ft high. They must have been close families), a small maternity hospital (well, a room that was 10x10 - 17 babies born there, apparently), and suchlike. Narrow passages - my shoulders brushed either side - and low enough to need a bowed head most of the way. Rather a hellish place to stay for years on end. A guy I met in a restaurant in Ponsavvanh (a UXO remover cum tourguide) had been brought to one as a child during the war, and spent age 4 to 8 inside.. said he didn't remember much of it, but his sisters said he was a brat throughout. Interesting story he had though; his father and brother had disappeared at the start of the war, when their village was razed, so his mother and sisters were all that was left - but when the war ended, his father found them again having been just a few miles away all that time; and just 2 years ago, his brother appeared having been adopted to Americans and become a doctor in Minnesota.
Anyway, bus down south to Hoi An. It's a pretty little place, lots of old Chinese buildings. Very foody - lots of excellent restaurants here; I splurged bigtime last night and got a 4 quid meal of 4 courses of some of the best food I've had in Vietnam - especially a 'beef in vinegar' dish; cook yourself thin slices of beef in boiling tasty broth, add with v.tasty foliage to rice paper, roll up and cook for another 5 seconds, dip in fish sauce, and voila! - it's delicious, and you feel like an expert chef.
This place is also big for shoppers - hundreds of tailor shops, all ready to make anything you want for a ridiculously cheap price. I was pretty dubious about it after Bangkok (those tailormade silk trousers I got make me look like a circus trainer, or maybe a middle aged variety hall performer. Faugh.)... but I finally decided, what the hell, they're way cheap and my current trousers are falling off me anyway (I'm certain that I'm the only person I know whose trousers grow in the wash. It's not that I'm shrinking, for sure). So ordered 2 pairs of my normal style combatish underpinnings, or the closest equivalent the Next catalogue had to offer, with modifications as described; picked out some very plain dull light silky stuff, and Voila! - they're perfect, for a grand total of 5 quid each. And the only modification I could think of after, they did on the spot, no problem. Excellent.
Anyway, being all templed-out at the moment, I bypassed all the architectural odds and ends the place has to offer, and went for a bit of a cycle yesterday. Except it turned out to last 50 km - after 2 hours of cycling, I stopped in a roadside caff and they explained how far I'd come and how far to the nearest beach, and I decided it was time to about-face. After a looong break. The family were most amused by my profuse sweatiness, and all the neighbours came around to inspect me. The guys tried to sell me the water for 5k dong, after I'd already bought one for 3k there, so had a bit of a good natured argument over that - even pointing to the sign on the bottle which quoted the rrp didn't bring the bartering to an end. And they helped themselves to my cigs (but offered me some when I ran out), and pretended to steal my lighter and watch, and other such things-to-do-to-tourists. They were all grand though, it was just the last bloke to arrive who got a bit annoying - punch drunk, with one phrase in English 'how long you bin Vietnam' - which he repeated many times in different ways to make everyone think he had more English than he had. Grand, but he started getting a bit insistent about how I should get together with him (using pretty clear sign language, and a bit more physical contact than I like). So I had to get snarly, and he showed me his fake leg (blown off by a bomb in the war, he mimed), but I wasn't sympathetic and left.
Anyway, after an out-of-the-blue 50km cycle, I was more than somewhat sore today. Dani had left me some muscle pills, which worked wonders on my legs which had previously been aching even in repose. Did nothing for my saddle sores though. So I've just had a hectic day of lying on the beach trying to decide whether to go to Na Trang tonight or tomorrow. I've decided on tomorrow. It's the children's festival here tonight - Trung Thu - where all the kids march around the streets in chinese dragon costumes and masks, beating a massive drum, with the little ones jumping around and squeaking, and the big ones hammering hell out of the drums. They've been practicing for it for the last 3 days since I got here - the drumming is excellent, real trance dance stuff. So gotta see the climax.