To Vietnam we go!

Up just after 4am for our next bus, but having to wait for an hour for our pickup to arrive (with a phone call to ensure we hadn't been forgotten) we finally clambered into the back of a Songthaew (a minivan made into a pick up truck) with a rice covered floor. We were taken to the northern bus station to get on our sleeper bus (see picture). At this point we were quite concerned about which route the bus would take - we had visas that meant we could only cross the Vietnamese border at 'Lao Bao' and had not been reassured by the staff that this would be the case.
Over 6 hours later we arrived at the Lao Bao border (luckily!) and without having to pay any "service charges" got through immigration. We had a chance to grab some food and have a quick wee stop before boarding back onto the bus. The restaurant we were pointed to gave us the option of one or two plates of mixed food - we decided to go for one. It consisted of rice, some sort of fish, maybe some goat, a square of omelette, tofu and some spicy greens, maybe seaweed.
We got dropped off 15km outside of Hué on the side of the road with a 'helpful' point in the direction of the town. From here we had to get a taxi to our hotel, the Jade hotel. It is a cheap hotel but they took our bags up to the 5th floor, gave us a free room upgrade, greeted uo with cold towels, lemonade and fruit before giving us a local map with welcomed recommendations for our evening. We were pretty hungry by now and so soon headed out to explore what Hué had to offer. Nearby was a tourist street full of restaurants and entertainment where we had a delicious meal with great service. We then wandered over to the night market, around and back to the hotel for dessert - a pancake with bananas and chocolate sauce.Read more