Hue

We knew coming in that Vietnam would be more like Thailand and Malaysia than Cambodia and Laos. More touristed, more amenities, and more expensive. We crossed the border in our preferred manner. We took the local bus to the border, walked a few kilometers across the border, then negotiated with the same tourist bus that left from Savannahket for a lower price to take us the rest of the way. We were asked "How did you get here?" by a SE Asian traveler. Most tourists travel on the tourist buses even if they don't come from so far away, people often don't even know how to get around any other way.

Often the truth is neither do we, but between our past experience mixed with a significant amount of guesswork we're able to predict pretty well that we'll be able to get from here to there. Or more accurately, from here to somewhere else to I don't know where to how did we end up here, to there. But we get there. We each saved 20,000 kip by traveling our way. That's about $2.50 to you and a dinner in a nice restaurant to us.

It took the whole day to make the trip and we arrived in Hue in the evening. It was about what we expected. Higher standards than Laos and Cambodia for restaurants, hotels, and everything. Not just for us, but also for the Vietnamese. Everything is much greener now that we're on the coast and there are conical hats everywhere. We saw a few in other places, but it really is a Vietnamese thing.

So we got acquainted with the new types of food (fried rice and noodles are still the staple), did some walking around and sightseeing, some little shopping, and settled into the last major country of the trip.