And The Rain Keeps Falling...

So I was pretty sure that I read we were supposed to be entering the dry season right about now. But over the last couple days it's been pretty much steady rain. Heavy, unrelenting, rain. This of course makes it difficult to travel, not to mention being a major drag. Hard to wander whistfully around towns when it's bucketing down. Also impossible to keep dry. But there's still so much to see and if I have to get soaked to see it all, then by golly wet I'll be!

The My Son temples were alright. They haven't weathered the climate and wars well however and right now aren't much more than broken jungle ruins. Still, there's enough to give a hint as to what they must have been like. From what I can tell they bear a much stronger relationship to Indian temples than any I've seen so far. Neat stuff.

Hoi An has to be my favorite town so far. Because of the UNESCO protection the old town site has been preserved and my gosh is it ever picturesque. You can't go anywhere, in any light, without finding something that's worth of a photo. Lanterns swinging outside worn golden yellow buildings. Red shutters filtering light past twittering bird cages. And the slow passage of the chocolately river beside blue fishing boats, their ever watchful painted eyes protecting their passengers. And it's quieter than the other places we've visited. Sure there's still the ever present motos, but there's less of them here. A beautiful place to visit.

From Hoi An we headed to Marble Mountain. So named because it's a main source of marble and thusly marble workshops. Gorgeous! Though you do have to hike up a fair few stairs to get to the temples and pagodas at the top. This was like something out of a movie. Towering buddhist temples lost amidst twisting trees and cool caves sheltering shrines and statuary. Aleks (one of the girls on the trip) and I went exploring through one of these caves. Well... I feel a bit bad, I basically dragged her down the rabbit hole. But after some squeezing and scrambling (felt a bit like the caves under Budapest) we emerged and were instantly blinded by sunlight. Holy crap! We'd climbed up through the damn mountain to the very top! And it was worth it. The view was fantastic.

However, we'd run out of time and essentially had to run down the mountain in order to meet up with our bus on time. Ignoring the signs telling us to proceed carefully (actually read "carfully") we bolted down the hundreds of stairs, confusing more than a few tourists and locals with our fly-by prayers to buddha for not letting us slip and break our necks!

Yesterday saw us arriving in Hue. (Pernounced "way") And after a very wet (it rained like it never has before) tour of the Purple Forbidden City, we flopped down in our favorite local haunt and treated ourselves to some excellent banana pancakes.

Today we toured some of the tombs of past Emperors. Beautiful, but it would have been better if we didn't have to swim through the rain to see them. Still, was neat to see. And most importantly, we stopped off a local village where they make the iconic Vietnamese pointed hats. So I finally have my hat and I no longer have to annoy my tour mates with my constant hat babble!

Tonight we take another trip on that vile local overnight train. Ugh. But assuming the flooding hasn't totally wiped out the tracks we should arrive in Hanoi tomorrow and then on to Halong Bay after breakfast.