Today we are going to try and survive the Vietnamese roads on a bike ('bike' as in 'bicycle'). When you are on some kind of vehicle, you have to respect the local traffic rules. The bike is a very common transport mean in Vietnam, and the roads and traffic rules are scaled to the speed and size of bikes. However, the scooter and slowly also the car are pushing hard to overrule the bike. Not to mention that the roads and traffic rules did not change in the mean time. People tend to drive at the right side of the road, but exceptions are the rule. You never stop, you just slow down or change direction. If you enter a road, it is not done to take into account the traffic around you. And whatever happens, never, NEVER look behind you. But Oma and Moeke/Vake, after all it is not as bad as it sounds, taking into account that everyone drives slowly, really slowly (as live is). On a number of occasions, we were overhauling scooters rather than they overhauled us.

The purpose of the bike tour was to visit some of the Nguyen emperor mausoleums. We had a little map and driving directions, so full of selfasteam we were heading off. After less than half an hour we were lost, and the local population was not really helpful. The imperial mausoleums are dispersed in the country landscape around Hue. With hardly any signs and a no English speaking population, we found out that tourists just have to help tourists. When we were completely lost, we found another lost tourist couple from Czech Republic, and together we could figure out where the tomb from Tu Duc was. (it is like the fresh Nems: do it yourself).

The temple was impressive and in a better state than the imperial palace in Hue's citadel. Tu Duc was the most cruel emperor, so absolutely the most interesting one to my account. The body is not buried in the actual grave, scared as they were for grave robbers. The legend says he was buried in the woods with his treasure, to mislead the treasure hunters.

After Tu Duc's tumb, we decided to continue through the countryside through the rice fields and the mud. We found the ruin of the amphitheatre were elephants used to fight the tigers to entertain the emperor. According to Trotter you could walk around on top of the arena. However, the access was blocked, and when we climbed the stairs anyway and crawled underneath the barrier, a police man appeared out of the blue, so we had to interrupt our visit. A little further we found another temple in decay next to a little lake, totally deserted, devoted to the brave elephants that did not survive the arena battle.

The bike tour was an absolute success, and regardless the aching lower part of our backs, we decided to repeat this experiment on the next occasion which would be in Hoi An.

The next day our private driver drove us over the 'Cloud' Pass near the sea and we visited the Marbled Mountains (some kind of Vietnamese Scherpenheuvel) on our way to Hoi An.